Sincerely, the Phoenix
by Aurora West
Summary: Maybe good things can come from ashes.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: _Harry Potter_ is the property of JK Rowling. Title from 'Sincerely, the Phoenix' by The Ethnographers.

Author's note: Years ago I wrote a 'how George and Angelina got together' fic. This is another one. This chapter's sort of half-edited; I wanted to put it up to see how people like it and if there's interest in a multi-chapter, massive George/Angelina fic from me. Because this fic _is_ turning out to be massive.

Many thanks to my two beta readers, bachlava and Lucy! Any mistakes are mine.

* * *

><p>"Ron, have we got any Boomslang Skin on order? Or possibly any laying about somewhere, in some supremely clever place which I've completely forgotten that I put it in?" George peered critically at the potion that was currently belching forth thick smoke of an ominous slick purplish-green colour. "A bit more of it and I think the Polypills'll be just about ready—"<p>

"If this is 'just about ready' I shudder to think of who's testing your products."

George whipped his head around at the voice. "Oh," he said, "it's you."

"Oh, very nice, George Weasley. 'Oh, it's me', indeed." Angelina Johnson took a step into the tiny room that George referred to as the 'laboratory' – always with a mad cackle – so she became more than just the slim silhouette she'd been against the better lighting outside. Her eyes were locked on the smoking potion. "Is that combustible?"

"Er, possibly. Most things seem to be, round here." Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice hissed at him that he should stand up to greet a woman – at least _this_ woman, Fred's former girlfriend, or former fiancée, or whatever they'd been. Before the hissing could become full-blown shouting (and the little voice did have an uncanny resemblance to his mother's), he did as it was suggesting, having to catch his chair by its back before it toppled over. In the normal course of things, he'd let the potion do whatever it was going to do, but the previous week that'd resulted in boils that exploded with neon orange pus – Ginny had snickered that they matched his hair – and that wasn't something that he particularly relished inflicting on Angelina. So before they found out if it was combustible, he pulled his wand from his back pocket and muttered, "_Evanesco_."

The potion disappeared, though the thick smoke lingered. Angelina waved a hand in front of her face, coughing and swiping at her eyes, which appeared to be watering. "How are you then, Weasley?"

"Corking, Johnson. Really smashing," George deadpanned. "What brings you here? Haven't you got training?" There was something in his voice that sounded standoffish, even to his own ears, and he resolved that the next words out of his mouth wouldn't carry it. It was just – what did she mean by it, dropping in when he'd barely seen her since—well, in the last year and a half?

She crossed her arms over her chest like she was shielding herself from something – him, he thought with a start – and said, "You look it." She eyed him. "You don't look so lopsided now."

"You must be used to my saintly side." He paused to give her an opening to react to that. She didn't. "And thanks, I think. How are you?"

She only shrugged and, without looking at him, took another step inside and turned to study the walls. They were lined with rickety shelves that were piled high with supplies and half-finished inventions. "What was that potion, anyway?"

George watched her straight back as she read handwritten labels. "It was supposed to be a less potent version of Polyjuice Potion. Polypills, we're calling them. Ten different faces and you'll never know which one you'll get. I keep trying to convince Harry to let us use his but he seems oddly averse to the idea."

"Whose faces are you using, then?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, you know, celebrities. We're tweaking each one, though, so you'll get Shacklebolt with a mohawk, or Viktor Krum with pink hair." For another moment, he watched her. "We're still debating You-Know-Who with a pig snout and purple beehive hair-do. Ron and Harry think it's a laugh; Hermione says it's too soon." That had been the general breakdown as far as You-Know-Who products had gone since the Battle when he solicited advice from his friends. George knew that he and Ron were taking their revenge in the only way they really could. The mockery didn't ease the pain of losing Fred all that much, but George sought refuge in laughter, because he felt closest to his absent twin then. Anyway, it was who he was – he laughed so hard he cried sometimes, and on the day of Fred's funeral he'd cried so hard he'd laughed, and it had seemed completely _apropros_. Fred would've appreciated it, anyway. He'd got mixed reactions from his family, though even Mum had given him a watery smile in the end and clung to him and called him her brave boy, and he'd said, "I dunno about that, Mum," and in his head he'd gone on _I only lost an ear, Fred went and lost his whole bloody life just like Uncles Gideon and Fabian_.

Angelina turned around with an appreciative expression on her face. "I think I agree with Ron and Harry."

"Yeah? Want to be a tester?" He was only half joking.

"You know, believe it or not, I make good money with this whole Quidditch thing. I'm not really looking for any extra work."

George studied her for a moment. She looked good in that way that people who desperately wanted everyone to think they were fine looked – and Angelina pulled it off better than most, casually gorgeous even in jeans and a sweatshirt. She was wearing her hair longer these days, and natural, so that it fell around her face and shoulders in unruly ringlets. But there was a look in her eyes, a buried grief that he recognised from his own attempts to do the same with his own grief, that spoke volumes. To him, at least, but then he'd been her friend for over a decade, and she'd been the first one at Hogwarts who could tell them apart (she'd learnt the difference on the train whilst he and Fred had shared a compartment with her and Lee). Anyway, she didn't fool him.

And she'd never said how she was.

Angelina cleared her throat. "The shop looks really good, by the way. I've um, I've come in now and then."

"Stop and say hello sometime, then, will you?" George said, feeling a bit daft the minute the words were out of his mouth. That was what she was doing, wasn't it?

Angelina shifted on her feet. "Well, that's what I'm doing, isn't it?"

"S'pose so." He paused, a pause which turned into an hesitation, and then he said, "Angelina, I can't help thinking maybe I should have—you know—seen you sometime."

This came out sounding so stupid and inadequate that he almost added a very un-Weasley-twin-esque stuttered addendum to the end of it, but Angelina just shrugged. "You've seen me. Anyway it's not as though I can't handle it, George."

_It_. Right. That little detail of Fred being dead and gone. Fred had made it clear that he was ready to stop messing about with Angelina's feelings; that when the war was over he was going to marry her; that they'd already talked, the two of them, and come to some sort of understanding. George still remembered the funny look that Fred had got on his face after they'd all managed to escape the Death Eaters at the end of Bill and Fleur's wedding, when Fred had remarked, "You know, it's the strangest thing, but none of Fleur's cousins are half so pretty as Angelina." Privately, George had agreed – still did – but out loud he'd said, "Spell-addled, are you?"

"No. I mean, yeah." George shook himself. "I mean, you look really good, Ange." That just made it sound as though he was expecting her not to. "As always." He didn't generally find himself stumbling over his own words, or at a loss for what to say, or nursing a tendency for babbling. Suddenly, faced with Angelina Johnson, he was afflicted by all three. "Hey, I'm a bit busy at the minute, but do you want to—I dunno, grab a pint at the Leaky Cauldron sometime? Catch up?"

He'd felt certain that this was a safe question – she, after all, had come to him; made the effort to find him all the way in the back of the shop – so he was shocked to see her turn pale. "Er, maybe." Her voice sounded odd. Strained. "I'm—er—quite busy, you know; Quidditch, but I'll...well, maybe."

Now he was just confused. "Why did you stop by, again, Angelina?"

There was a look on her face that was half frightened. "Just to say hello." She took a step back towards the door and glanced over her shoulder. "Anyway, George, I've got to go. Er—nice seeing you."

Before he could return the sentiment, she'd whirled and departed, and he was too bewildered by her completely confusing behaviour to do anything but stare at the now empty doorway.

After a second, Ron poked his head into the laboratory – insert mad cackle – his eyebrows raised at George. "What did Angelina want?"

George's brow stayed furrowed as he answered, "I've no idea."

* * *

><p>In some ways, George Weasley was better than people thought he was. It had been one year, seven months, and five days since Fred had died, and he'd actually had to glance at a calendar to come up with the exact count, which he supposed was a good sign. He'd stopped drinking so much. He socialised with his friends – better than socialising with strangers, anyway, which he'd frequently done when he'd been consuming vastly larger amounts of Firewhiskey than were advisable.<p>

People seemed to think he couldn't bear to hear Fred's name mentioned, as though somehow he'd forgotten his brother was dead and by reminding him they'd send him into a downward spiral of grief. He'd shouted himself hoarse at Alicia Spinnet on the subject one of the times she'd started a sentence with 'Fr—" and then immediately stopped, looking horrified. Those vast amounts of Firewhiskey had been involved. Eventually Oliver Wood had intervened, threatening to punch George in the face if he didn't shut his effing mouth, a threat which George had taken very seriously, as Wood's massive fist had suddenly appeared at his eye level. The next morning he'd shown up at Alicia's flat with flowers (Hermione's suggestion) and an apology; Alicia had hugged him and said, "Fred probably wouldn't want us pretending he hadn't existed."

This was true. On their twentieth birthday they had, for the first time, considered the fact that they might die. That one of them might die. And that the other would have to go on living. "Make sure there are prettily weeping Veelas at my funeral," George had said, "but keep Mum from crying too much."

"Likewise," Fred had replied. "And I'll need fireworks. Loads and loads of fireworks. If the bloody Death Eaters destroyed the stock then hold off the funeral till you can make more. Think you can put on my headstone, 'Sorry girls, you'll have to make do with George'?"

It had been both amusing and terrifying, and then amusing again as their funeral requests mounted in absurdity, but underneath the conversation there'd been a palpable current of prayer that each of them wasn't the left-behind twin.

The fireworks he'd managed. Hopefully Fleur, her mother, and sister had been good enough for prettily weeping Veelas. They _had_ all wept very prettily. More prettily than George, for sure.

Sometimes he wondered if Fred would have handled all of it better. He didn't think so.

"She drinks a lot, you know." Ginny's voice jolted George back to the present and he looked at his sister, startled. This was, in fact, news to him. So he and Johnson had something in common. Or she had something in common with twenty-year-old George. Twenty-one-year-old George was the very picture of sobriety. Ginny had threatened him with her Bat-Bogey Hex, which hadn't overly troubled him. Then Harry had said she'd found some way of making it longer-lasting. That hadn't much troubled him, either, as he was one-third into a bottle of Firewhiskey at the time. Then Harry had sat down, moved the bottle out of the way, and said in a way that had made him listen, "George, you've got to stop this."

And he had. Not all at once, but somehow, in Harry's insistence that he understood, there was something that rang truer than everyone else's. Stupid, really. All his siblings had lost a brother as well. But there it was.

"Angelina?" Harry asked. "No way. She was always so..."

"Mental?" George supplied.

"I was going to say driven."

The three of them were lounging in Harry's sitting room – George pointedly pretending not to notice the fact that Ginny's personal effects were scattered throughout Grimmauld Place – drinking Butterbeers, each of them relaxing after their respective long days. It was about a week after the odd encounter with Angelina, and he'd mentioned it off-handedly, knowing Ginny was the one amongst them who'd the most contact with her.

"Yeah, well." Ginny glanced at George sidelong and hesitated before saying, "She took Fred's death really hard."

Gesturing towards her with his mug of Butterbeer, George commented, "You don't need to tiptoe round the subject, Gin, it's not going to shatter me. I know he's dead."

Ginny glared at him. "I'm so glad to hear you say that _now_."

Harry held up a hand for peace between the siblings. "How do you know how Angelina took—it?" he asked Ginny.

Pursing her lips and giving George a speculative look, she answered, "I _se_e her drinking. And I assumed it was Fred."

"Because you walked in on them at Auntie Muriel's," George remarked.

Ginny leant back into the couch. "He was just lucky it was me that walked in and not Mum or Auntie Muriel. Honestly, bringing girls _there_."

Harry guffawed and George caught his eye with a grin. "I'm glad someone could find – er – some happiness back then," the younger man snorted. "Where were you?" he asked George.

Taking a swig of Butterbeer, George replied, "In the kitchen trying to keep Mum and Auntie Muriel from going upstairs. That one couldn't stop giggling madly when she came down."

"To get over the revulsion," Ginny said, though she was smiling. "Knowing that your brothers get up to things in bed—"

"You want to word that more carefully or you'll make people think Percy and I've got something going on," George interjected.

Ginny made a disgusted face but finished, "—is not the same as knowing _what_ they get up to in bed, and who with."

"Likewise," George said, then, looking at Harry, added, "Though I assume my sister hasn't got up to anything in said apparatus."

Harry looked frozen for a second and Ginny snapped, "Oh, shut it."

With a grin, George said, "Just my joke, Harry. Anyway, it's better this way; I've known you since you were eleven so there aren't many character flaws you've kept hidden."

"At least they're out in the open," Harry said dryly.

"Exactly! Saves a lot of tedious checks into your background."

Harry put up with this ribbing with a good-natured grimace, as he always had. Then he said musingly, "I never realised Fred was serious about anyone."

George shrugged. "He wasn't till that year. You know, war-time romance or whatever." He'd had no such thing himself. For awhile at school he'd gone out with Katie Bell, but there'd always been more friendship there than anything else and it had just sort of ended, no hard feelings on either side. There'd been a few girls since then, but none after he'd lost the ear. There wasn't anyone worth the worry – him worrying about her, that was, and her worrying about him.

Ginny said, a bit sadly, "I always try to say hello or get her to come round for dinner sometime, but Angelina's very…" She hesitated, searching for the right words, and George wondered whose benefit that was for. "Well, she's very closed off. Friendly, but distant." Then, she added thoughtfully, "I wonder why she came to see you, George?"

"We used to be friends." George had wondered the same thing and had really hoped Ginny would shed some light on it.

"Used to be," Ginny said pointedly. "Maybe it wouldn't have been the worst thing if you'd kept being her friend."

"Merlin, you're making me feel a bit guilty for not looking in on her." As though he hadn't already felt guilty. Every time he saw her, he felt that little twinge. But it was hard.

Rolling her eyes, Ginny said, "Catching on, I see. But she's not a convalescent, George. _Looking in on her_, honestly."

"A bloke tries to say the right thing," George sighed, looking to Harry for support, who shrugged and looked at Ginny with such gloopy adoration that George had to glance away or risk being sick.

"Well, you know we're playing Ballycastle next week," Ginny said. "You could come to one of my games for once and 'look in on her' while you're at it."

"Maybe I will," George said. "I hear you're halfway decent."

"What would I do without brothers to keep me humble?"

"I dunno, but I shudder to think of the state of your ego if you didn't."

"Did you want to have dinner with us?" Ginny asked pointedly. "Keep this up and you won't be."

George grinned. "My stomach would never forgive me."

"God forbid _that_ relationship sours."

Getting to his feet and stretching, Harry said, "Yeah, and it's Chinese takeaway night, so you don't want her kicking you out. The eggrolls at that place in Diagon Alley aren't very good."

"No, they're rubbish, actually," George agreed.

Shrugging on a jacket, Harry asked, "Gin, do you want the Singapore noodles?"

"Please. Thanks, love," she said, shooting him a bright smile.

"Want company, Harry?" George asked.

Harry grinned. "That's all right. You'll want to work out where we're meeting Ginny after her game next week."

"Absolutely no male solidarity," George grumbled.

There was something absurd about the hero of the Second Wizarding War walking down the road to get Chinese takeaway. And he did it _sans_ wand, though George could see him hesitate over leaving it. But he did, to prove that he could – probably as much to himself as anybody else. Two years ago no one would have dared leave their house without a wand, and it had been getting pretty near the point where most blood-traitors barely dared leave the house at all. And forget Halfbloods and Muggleborns – if they'd been smart they'd gone into hiding. Come to think of it, he seemed to recall Angelina mentioning her parents staying in St Kitt's. It was one of the days they'd done Potterwatch together, and as they'd sat in the dark room, curtains drawn over all the windows, waiting for Lee to come back from having a smoke, she'd told him in a desperately casual voice that her parents were after her to join them there.

He'd taken a swig of the Butterbeer they were sharing between them and asked, "Are you going to?"

She'd shaken her head vehemently. "How can I?" He'd just nodded. She couldn't. The same way he and Fred couldn't just sit in Auntie Muriel's attic and hide. The same way Lee had quit his job at the WWN and was risking everything running Potterwatch. The same way hundreds of witches and wizards were resisting in whatever small ways they could. Then she'd picked up the Butterbeer and held it to her lips, before lowering it and saying, "Don't tell Fred, yeah? I dunno if he'd want me to go or stay. And I don't know which one I _want_ him to want."

George had crossed his heart with a finger. "Your secret's safe with me."

He hadn't a clue if she'd ever told Fred. He'd always wondered why she'd told him. Maybe she'd known he'd only ask what she meant to do.

The idea that she'd told him something that she didn't want to tell Fred; the realisation of the friendship that had existed between Angelina and him which had lapsed, and probably when both of them needed it most, made him cross his arms over his chest and give Ginny a measuring look. "All right then," he said, "I'll come. Get me a ticket?"

Ginny rolled her eyes but smiled, and nodded.

* * *

><p>The match was hard fought, but in the end the Harpies won by eighty points, their Seeker scooping up the Snitch in a blur of green just inches ahead of the Bats' Seeker, who pulled up out of her dive looking murderous. George, Harry, and Ron imitated some of the more spectacular moments from the match as they strolled towards the changing rooms, where Ginny had said she'd meet them outside of. Then George turned to mimicking Ron's imitations, which caused his brother to turn beet red and take a swipe at him (some things never changed, he couldn't help musing). He wondered if Angelina would actually be there, and that made him wonder if he shouldn't act slightly more like the supposed adult that he was.<p>

Ginny'd said she'd try and find Angelina but had cautioned in the same breath that Ange had a tendency to rush off. George could understand that. There'd been a not-so-distant time of his life when he'd had the same tendency, because sometimes one's supposed friends set a mob of eager and well-meaning acquaintances on one, and no matter how well-meaning they were, it was all too much. But, he reminded himself, he was doing this because it was the right thing, because Angelina was supposed to be his mate. And sometimes your mates needed a kick in the arse. He certainly had.

As they rounded a corner in the corridor, George fell back behind Ron and Harry slightly. Ginny and Angelina were standing outside the visiting team's changing room, chatting easily. Ginny had changed into ordinary clothes, but Angelina was still in her black and red Quidditch robes. As the three of them approached, Angelina turned and looked their way, saying delightedly as she saw them, "Harry, Ron!" and striding over to snake their hands enthusiastically in greeting. Ginny rushed to embrace Harry – maybe the other way around – and the two of them shared a kiss. George kept his own hands in his pockets for a moment but then raised one in greeting as Angelina's eyes fell on him. For a second, she didn't do anything but give him that same half-frightened look that she had two weeks ago, but then she seemed to shake herself and offered him a small smile. "Hullo, George," she said.

He'd never seen her up close in her Ballycastle robes and so he'd never seen how confident and poised she looked in them. If anyone had ever questioned her career path, they only needed to look at her now to see she'd chosen the right one. "Nice game," he said in response.

She snorted dismissively and shrugged, "Words better suited to your sister."

"Oh, he'd never say any such thing to me," Ginny said without rancour.

George stepped over to her and lifted her right off her feet in a massive hug. "Magnificent flying!" he cried grandiosely before returning her to the ground and Harry's arm slung casually round her shoulders. He had to look away from the warm look that Ginny was giving him, knowing that he probably hadn't fooled anyone with his extravagance.

Angelina looked genuinely pleased to see Harry and Ron, bombarding them with questions about what they'd been doing since she last saw them. Of course no one actually said the words 'since I last saw you', since for all intents and purposes, the last time the three of them had really seen each other was at a funeral. It was always an awkward conversation, that first one after the mutually experienced funeral. George thought he'd got most of them behind him but occasionally he'd run into someone – it had been Ernie MacMillan last month – whom he just hadn't seen, and then there was always that _moment_ as both parties thought back and recalled when the last time they'd spoken had been.

She seemed fascinated by Harry's Auror training, though winced sympathetically at the idea of three extra years of training before the qualification exams. George let his mind wander, keeping his eyes on Angelina's face whilst considering whether to introduce the new Daydream Charms now or to wait until the spring. Ideally he'd have liked to have got them out several weeks earlier so they'd have had a full Christmas season to sell, but WWW would most likely recoup a good part of the R&D costs just by having them available for Christmas—

"And I suppose there's never a dull moment at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," cut across his reverie. Angelina was addressing Ron, but he caught a quick flicker of a glance in his direction.

"When he's got me doing the ledgers it's plenty dull," Ron replied.

George snorted. "You can be demoted to sweeping, if you'd rather. Your maths are pretty rubbish, anyway."

Angelina looked like she'd been startled, against her will, into a smile. "You've not learnt how to be nice, still, I see," she commented to George.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ron said, "If he wasn't a tosser I'd know there was something seriously wrong with him."

"_More_ seriously wrong, as the case may be," Ginny said with a smile.

Putting a hand to his heart and rolling his eyes dramatically ceiling-wards, George said, "What incentive have I got to be nice when I put up with such abuse?"

"Don't let them fool you," Harry remarked to Angelina.

"No," she said, sounding amused, "I don't."

"Any plans for Christmas?" Harry asked her.

Her eyes swept over them, Weasleys and Potter-who-may-as-well-have-been-one, and she said, "Just a quiet day with my parents, probably." George could practically hear her thoughts – or maybe they were his own – if things had been different she'd probably be spending this Christmas at the Burrow with a wedding ring already on her finger. To her credit, she showed none of this on her face. But that was Angelina, wasn't it? Never one to be overly emotional, that was her. He'd never have blamed her for showing her hand, though.

Again, her gaze flickered towards George, but she asked Harry, "You? Spending it with this lot, I imagine?"

"Probably my godson and his grandmother as well," Harry nodded. Ginny looked delighted by this, as though she hadn't heard yet.

"I didn't know you had a godson," Angelina remarked. Detectable in her tone was the skirting of the issue of where this godson's parents were. That was a type of tact everyone had had to learn in the last year and a half.

Harry's eyes positively lit up. "Yeah, he's going on two in April, but he's already doing magic – little things, you know, but he did manage to get his sippy cup to fly across the room the other day when he wasn't supposed to be having any more juice. Oh, and he's a Metamorphmagus, gets that from his mum; supposedly he's been doing that since practically the minute he was born—"

"Angelina, have you got three hours?" George asked. "Because get Harry started on Teddy and that's _easily_ how long he can expound on the subject."

"It's sweet," Ginny assured him, kissing his cheek. Then she fixed her eye on Angelina, and George wondered what, exactly, his sister had in store, because he knew that look very well and it normally meant that something was being planned for someone that they may not like, though Ginny would well go on that it was for their own good. "George and Ron are having a bit of a Christmas party at the shop this week; you should come along."

This party was news to George, and judging by the startled glance that Ron threw at Ginny, it was him as well. He was tempted to say that they'd changed the location to Ginny's flat so she'd be the one forced to arrange a party that no one had been planning on, but he needn't have worried, because Angelina immediately shook her head. "Oh, thank you, but I'm busy; can't come, I'm afraid…"

"You're busy all week?" Ginny asked. "The week before Christmas? You could just pop by, surely?"

Angelina's demeanor changed so rapidly that George seriously considered, for a moment, whether she mightn't have been switched out for someone else, and he'd missed it while he blinked. Where before she'd been easy and relaxed – enough; George could still tell she wasn't entirely – she became suddenly tense, stammering out something about maybe extra training, not to mention Christmas shopping, and before any of them could so much as say, "Happy Christmas, anyway," she'd vanished into the changing room.

For a moment, the four of them stood there, as though a sudden, violent storm had just passed by. Then, Harry said, "You know, George, I reckon you're right. Angelina _might_ be mental."

* * *

><p>With Christmas over, life settled into dreary winter rains and much use of Mum's annual jumper. It was a cold January, and the heating at 93 Diagon Alley had always been a bit dodgy. George vowed to have it repaired, or maybe replaced, depending on the cost. Lee told him he just needed someone to keep him warm at night, but Lee was full of tidbits of this nature since he'd started going out with Morag MacDougal. George had told him to shove it, which had been unfair, but Lee had shrugged it off.<p>

Christmas itself had been better than the previous year. Mum hadn't burst into tears once. Percy had brought his girlfriend, Audrey Wells. Fleur looked even more radiant pregnant, a feat which had prompted Hermione to remark in a low tone to Ron, George, Harry, and Ginny, "She's going to make the rest of us look bad," at which point Ron had turned a delicate shade of green. Not that he was fooling anybody – it was plain as the hole in George's head that Ron and Hermione were headed for matrimonial bliss, though George couldn't blame Ron for objecting to pregnancy being brought into the conversation so early. Luckily Hermione had noticed and said, "Honestly, Ron – it was a _joke_."

Maybe the best part of Christmas was that George had refrained from biting anyone's head off, which he'd done the previous year for no real reason other than that he was angry and lonely and grieving. Percy had borne the brunt of it, as George had spewed every last hateful thing he'd thought about his older brother in the past seven months – that he'd been with Fred when he'd died, that they'd had to lose Fred to get Percy back and that George would've kept Fred, thanks very much. He'd stayed up hours later than everyone else scrubbing mashed parsnips out of the wood floor, and he'd done it without magic because it had felt right to do so, because there was no spell to clean up the mess of his life.

Percy had joined him just past one o'clock in the morning. "Perce—" George had begun, well sobered up by that point, but Percy had waved a hand for him to shut it, and he had. "Think I haven't thought the same things?" Percy finally asked, sounding like he was choking a bit.

"I don't really think those things," George had said quietly.

Percy'd looked at him. "I know."

They'd been much closer since then.

It was lunchtime now, and George had braved the damp chill of the January day to walk to the Leaky Cauldron for some of Tom's infamous pea soup. He scooped up the steaming bowl with one hand and his pumpkin juice with the other. Food in hand, he headed towards the quieter end of the Leaky Cauldron. There'd been a time in his life where he'd've wanted to be in the centre of things, to make sure he was seen and particularly heard; it was publicity for the shop and he enjoyed it besides. These days, though, he just wanted to eat a quiet lunch. Helped that he'd left his magenta robes back at the shop in favour of something more understated. Some days he went back but Ron had noted that when he did that, he didn't exactly take any kind of lunch hour, it was more eating as he walked round, and the day he'd accidentally left pea soup close enough for the Pygmy Puffs to get at it – well, the offspring they'd produced after that had been interesting, but neither George nor Ron thought they were going to be the next craze in magical pets.

As he made his way to his favourite corner, a dark head of hair buried behind a _Daily Prophet_ caught his eye, and he veered sharply towards it. "All right, Johnson?" he asked casually.

Angelina abruptly laid the paper down on the table, looking surprised to be addressed. "Oh," she said, "it's you." Quickly, she added, "Tom normally puts some sort of charm around the table so no one will bother me."

"Right, you being a famous Quidditch player and all." George stood in front of her. "I'd know that head anywhere, though. No charm of Tom's is going to fool me."

There was a wary expression on Angelina's face. "Do you come here often?" she asked.

"Every once in awhile," he drawled. A smile twitched at the corner of her lips and George took that as a good an invitation as any to sit down, which he did. "I've been ejected from my own shop for the time it takes me to eat my lunch."

"I'm shocked you'd let Ron do that."

George dipped his spoon into the soup and took a swallow of it, then answered, "I'm getting more amenable in my old age."

She closed the _Prophet_ and gave him that small smile again. "You were always amenable, George."

"Yeah?" he asked.

Watching him eat his pea soup for a minute, she said, "I always thought you were easier-going than Fred."

"One of us had to be. Pure accident that it was me, I assure you."

He was surprised she'd brought Fred up first. Then again if he was going to be brought up it certainly wouldn't have been by George; he could never quite forget the expression on her face at the funeral, like that presence, that sense of self, that quintessentially Angelina Johnson spark and fire in her eyes had gone out.

There was a cup of pumpkin juice at her elbow, which she picked up and drank from. Hiding her discomfort? Anyway it troubled him a bit, looking her in the eye here and now, because that spark and fire didn't seem to have found its way back entirely. Merlin, Fred gone a year and a half. He hated to think about anyone living even remotely like him through all those months.

Noticing the clean plate at her other elbow, he cracked a smile and said, "You know, one of these days we should actually go out and spend some proper time together, instead of fifteen minute intervals."

There was a flash in her eyes, almost like the Angelina of yore. "Going somewhere, are you?"

"Told you, Ron wants me out while I eat. And I see you've already enjoyed your lunch. Don't imagine you'll be hanging round much longer."

She looked to the empty plate, like she'd forgotten about eating at all. "You take time off, then? You never used to."

"Well, things are a bit more settled now. Ron can handle them." He paused to think before adding fairly, "And Verity's been there so long that she could probably run the place better than Ron or me, anyway." If she thought he hadn't noticed her neat circumvention of an answer just there, then she had another think coming. "So what do you say; have lunch with me sometime? Say next week?"

"Mm," she said noncommittally, sipping at her pumpkin juice again. "How was your Christmas?"

"It was good; Fleur finally got Mum to switch off Celestina Warbeck when she faked contractions, but if that's what it takes to keep old Celestina quiet in our house, Fleur's figure is really going to take a beating." George fixed her with an even stare. "Are you going to answer me or not?"

Looking startled, she asked, "Sorry?"

"Lunch. Next week. Whatever day you're free; I'll make time." George watched her brow knit. "It's an easy question. You say it like this: yes. Or no. Whichever you prefer."

Bitterness didn't sound good on Angelina, but that was exactly the tone of her sharp exhalation. "It's not an easy question," she muttered, almost too low for him to hear. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," she said.

At that, George let his frustration at her evasiveness get the better of him. "Bloody hell, Angelina, if you've got a problem with me then just say it," he snapped.

She jumped to her feet, her chair scraping on the floor as it almost toppled over, and he cursed himself for saying the wrong thing. "I should go," she blurted.

"Ange—" he began, but she was already halfway to the door. For half a second he debated following her, and then he leapt up as well, dodging tables and chairs until he caught up with her just outside on the other side of the entrance to Diagon Alley. "Ange, wait a minute!" She was close enough that he could have grabbed her arm but he was pretty sure she'd punch him if he tried. Mercifully, she stopped and turned around to look at him. He just stared at her for a moment. "What's going on with you?" _And me_, he could have added, but that implied that there was a she and him, which there was most definitely not.

She stared him down but he didn't blink, being well used to her states of high dudgeon from Hogwarts. Finally, she sighed, her shoulders drooped, and she took several steps away from the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, to a spot more hidden from view and where people weren't staring as much. He supposed a certain amount of staring was to be expected – she, after all, _was_ a famous Quidditch player, centre Chaser for the Ballycastle Bats and fairly brilliant at it, and he wasn't unknown himself, though he preferred the admiration of the wizardlings and witchlets in the shop to being known as one of the Heroes of the Battle of Hogwarts. After another long moment, she sighed in frustration. "Have you got any idea how – how _scary_ it is looking at you?" Angelina demanded.

George pretended not to know what she meant. "Scary? Me? Wrong Weasley. You're thinking of my mum, or possibly Ginny." Then, because he could see how much the admission had cost her, he sighed. "Yeah, Ange. I know. And yet we keep running into each other." Strictly speaking, this wasn't exactly true, as one of those occasions had been planned, but it was fair to assume that they _would_ run into each other. It was fair to say that they _had_, in the past year and a half. So what if they'd left their interactions to a mumbled hello and then an awkward good-bye? For the love of God, _she_ had come into the shop to talk to him. He'd have loved to chalk it up to women in general, but he'd a feeling this was an Angelina-specific issue.

"The Wizarding world isn't a big place," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes.

For a minute, he let her act like a prat, refusing to look at him when she obviously wanted to. "Hey, Angelina. Just say what you want to say."

She kept up her prattish behaviour for another minute or two, and then, finally, she looked at him, drew a deep breath, and said in a rush, "You're not Fred."

"Cor blimey," he said in a flat tone. "Really? Why haven't I been told before now?" She looked gutted by his sarcasm, and he immediately felt guilty. "Ange—sorry."

Her arms were crossed over her chest again in that now-familiar shielding gesture. He really wished she didn't feel the need to do that around him. Then again, maybe he didn't make it easy for her. Certainly he hadn't just a minute ago. "Merlin help me, George, I actually _missed_ seeing you. I lost Fred for good and then I lost you, except you're right here and I thought we could be friends, even though—even though you—" She didn't finish the sentence, but George knew what she meant – _even though you look just like Fred_. He supposed he didn't blame her, really. He hadn't much choice; it was his own face and he had to get used to seeing his dead brother every day, but he knew how she felt; he'd been terrified to look in the mirror for a full week after the Battle. Stupid really, it'd never been out of his mind that Fred was dead, but somehow his reflection had made it worse. He'd got over it. Angelina didn't need to.

"That's why I came to see you," she said, sounding miserable. "I thought I should be able to be a normal person; get on with my life, see my mates, you know? Except I got in there and I couldn't, George. I looked at you and all I could see was Fred, and that's…_pathetic_, isn't it?"

"Not really," George said in a feeble attempt at levity.

Luckily, she just ignored it. "It's not fair. To you, I mean. It's terrible of me. You don't deserve that."

She looked as though she was going to go on, but then she met his eyes and her expression twisted into something close to self-loathing – too close to it, as far as George was concerned. "I don't blame you," he said. Her expression twitched. "Look, I get it. I do. Mad as it sounds it was sort of the same for me." He thought about reaching out and touching her shoulder but didn't. There would've been something of the absurd in his inability to take a hint. "I think—I mean, I'd like to be friends again, Ange. But I get it. Too soon. Maybe it'll always be too soon."

The self-loathing melted from Angelina's face. "I hope it isn't, George. I really do."

And he didn't say it, because he could feel that it was time to let her walk away, but he did, too.


	2. Chapter 2

"These sorts of things were loads more fun to go to before Fred died," George said, grimacing at his reflection. He could never decide whether or not to wear his green dragonhide jacket, but without it his shirt and tie looked too formal and too blasé.

"Thanks," Ron said with a roll of his eyes as he straightened his tie.

"No offence." Yeah, he definitely needed the jacket. "Oy, Ron, chuck me my jacket, will you?"

"None taken," Ron said first, and then reached across himself to grab the lurid dragonhide jacket and commented, as he tossed it, "You could've just Summoned it."

George shrugged it on and said, "It would've hit you in the face but I'll remember that next time."

"Oh, so it was just consideration for me."

"Ron, when have I ever _not_ been considerate of you?"

With a snort that was answer enough, Ron asked, "Ready to go?"

George grabbed his wand from the table, twirled it in his fingers, and stuck it in his back pocket. "Ready."

The two of them clattered down the stairs, through the shop, and out the door, George making sure that it was locked behind them. Wouldn't do for mischief to be made in the mischief headquarters of magical Britain by anyone other than the proprietors, after all.

"So what's the book at this release party, anyway?" Ron asked as they walked. One of the perks of owning the most successful joke shop in Britain, and being headquartered in Diagon Alley, was the onslaught of invitations to high profile, wine-and-hors-d'oeuvre events attended by the Wizarding glitterati. The novelty had yet to wear off for Ron, although it was beginning to for George. But he went because he'd made plenty of useful contacts at these things, and besides, he wasn't one to turn down free food and booze.

George pulled out the card he'd received in the post and read it. "_Swimming With Sirens: One Man's Year with the Merfolk_, by Alfie Flumineus." Raising an eyebrow at his younger brother, he asked, "How d'you reckon he spent a year underwater without turning completely pruny?"

"Dunno." Ron mulled this over. "We should ask Harry if gillyweed keeps you getting wrinkly."

"Still, eating gillyweed on the hour for a year...well, you'd get sick of it, wouldn't you?"

"You wouldn't be able to sleep," Ron pointed out. "You'd have to eat it every hour to keep from drowning."

With a thoughtful look, George remarked, "Maybe we'll have to read the book." Then, considering that for another moment, he said, "Nah," drawing a sound of agreement from Ron. "Say," George began, "is Harry going to be there? He's as much a celebrity as I am."

"You?" Ron asked in a disgruntled tone.

"You're right, he's probably just _slightly_ more famous. The Chosen Boy Who Lived and Saved Us All or whatever he's called these days."

"Dunno. He was awfully cagey when I asked about it."

"I like to think of that as Ginny-induced cageyness. My response is generally not to discuss it any further."

"Good plan," Ron said. "What we don't know can't hurt us."

The two of them entered the Leaky Cauldron, but instead of stopping for a pint as they usually did, they exited straightaway into Muggle London. The address on the invitation brought them to an alley at the back of a small, dingy, unassuming antiquarian bookshop, with a door that opened onto a small corridor behind it. A door led to a staircase, which they ascended to the fifth storey of the building, where the stairs opened onto a single, large loft, obviously magically expanded to occupy far more space than the building could provide.

The loft was already full of people and loud voices echoed loudly off its bare brick walls. Wine and beer were flowing freely, with uniformed wait-staff circulating with libations and hors-d'oeuvre on offer. "Wish they'd serve a proper meal at these things," Ron grumbled as three or four deviled eggs disappeared rapidly into his mouth.

George's first priority was alcohol, not food, and he quickly acquired a glass of wine for himself, while Ron chose beer. "Wonder where old Alfie is?" Ron mused.

"Dunno; I've never seen the man."

Suddenly, a voice behind them caught their attention. "Ahem, Mr Weasley and Mr Weasley, can I ask you both a couple of questions about what it's like running the shop that brought business back to Diagon Alley?"

They turned around, George intending to inform what was surely another _Daily Prophet_ vulture that she could take her questions and stick them somewhere specific and impolite, but then his eyes fell on—

"Parvati Patil!" Ron exclaimed, hugging her.

George shook her hand, remarking, "They say that about us, do they?"

Parvati straightened her large, dangling chandelier earrings, smiling widely. "They do, but don't worry, I won't ask."

George hadn't recalled Parvati being as cute as she was – but now she was nineteen, she was both sophisticated and beautiful, dressed in a silver, sari-like frock, with her hair swinging around her shoulders and her fringe just falling into her eyes, which were large and dark. A smile remained on her face as the three of them caught up, and George felt certain that she noticed his eyes on her. It was an odd feeling, looking at a woman and thinking of her as such. Odd and certainly not unwelcome, after a year and more of barely noticing the fairer sex as the fairer sex. And as the fairer sex went, Parvati was definitely amongst the fairest.

"Oy," Ron said suddenly, elbowing George, "_that's_ got to be Alfie Flumineus." He indicated with a nod a man on the other side of the room who looked as though he hadn't quite accustomed himself to living above the surface of the water, with pale skin and watery eyes and, unless George was mistaken, slight webbing still between several of his fingers.

"That's him," Parvati confirmed.

"I've got to talk with this bloke," Ron said. "Looks like he's still eating gillyweed, doesn't he? Excuse me, Parvati; it was really good seeing you—"

As Ron made his way across the room, Parvati remarked, "Judging by the amount of personality he's got, the merfolk made Alfie Flumineus leave because they got too bored with him."

George guffawed at that. "_Daily Prophet_, then, right?"

"Arts section, though at the minute it's more gossip." Parvati tilted her head, making her earrings jangle. "I'm hoping to be given a promotion sometime soon. Not that I don't enjoy reporting on who's who in the Wizarding world, but it would be nice to report on actual _news_."

"Well, speaking for myself," George said, "I'm glad the _Prophet_ sent its most attractive correspondent."

Parvati laughed. "Do you even ask if a girl's single before you start flirting with her?"

"Never. Should I?" Then, because he wasn't sure if that had been a veiled request to stop – Merlin, he was out of practice with this sort of thing – he remarked with a nod towards her quill, "I see you do your own writing."

The oblique reference to Rita Skeeter wasn't lost on her – anyway the old bat had got her job at the _Prophet_ back, God knew how, so they'd probably crossed paths. "Ah, right." Parvati glanced at the quill and wrote on her notepad, _George Weasley is quite the charmer_, saying, "I _know_ a Quick-Quotes Quill could have improved upon that."

Well, that was encouraging. George grinned. "Something like, 'George Weasley, the most brilliant and handsome man in magical London, still can't compete with Parvati Patil in terms of sheer looks."

"Exactly my point. I tell the truth."

"So do I."

She took this in stride, not even pretending to blush while she smiled appreciatively at him, and George got the sense that Parvati was a woman who was used to being chatted up. "Well, it was really good seeing you," she said, "but I'm really here for business, not pleasure; and there's gossip to be listened in on. Don't worry, I won't involve you in it."

"I figured you wouldn't."

With another pretty smile, Parvati turned away from him. "In case you're wondering," she said over her shoulder, "I am."

He raised an eyebrow. "You are?"

Shooting him a slightly mischievous smile, she said, "Single."

So that she wouldn't see the equal parts triumphant and stupid smile on his face, he turned and didn't watch her walk away. That had been...unexpected. Merlin, he'd not had a conversation like that since the Veela cousins at Bill and Fleur's wedding. It felt good to act just a bit like a normal twenty-one-year-old man. Who knew, maybe he'd even owl her.

As he was musing over these ideas, he stared absently at the back of someone's head; a tall woman with black hair, whom, with a laugh, turned around at that moment—

"Angelina?" he blurted when he saw who he'd been looking at. He'd never seen her at one of these sorts of things before, though he was sure she got invited just as much as he did – young, eligible Quidditch player like her – she just didn't attend. At least, he hadn't thought she did. The refutation to that presumption was currently staring at him in shock.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as she exclaimed, "George!" The memory of their last conversation kept him silent for a second, long enough for his eyes to sweep over her and the slight bloke with her. "Er, George, this is Aidan Lynch..." Angelina said unnecessarily. As if George wouldn't recognise Aidan Lynch, though what Angelina was doing with her arm looped through his; _that_ was rather more of a mystery.

"You're George Weasley!" Lynch said, sounding thrilled, as though he'd just met a celebrity.

"Last I checked, yeah," George replied. The two men shook hands and George said, "S'pose I should tell you I'm a big fan—"

Lynch shrugged. He was shorter than Angelina – Seeker build – but his hair was ginger, and George couldn't help wondering if that was accidental. "I was about to say the same thing to you. Gave the entire team U-No-Poo once; it was brilliant; feckin' genius."

George supposed he should be flattered that the Seeker for the Irish national team was so enthusiastic about Wheezes products, but all he could think about was the way his hand was indecently low on Angelina's back. "I enthusiastically endorse future use of it, particularly if you're about to play England," he said, tearing his eyes away from said appendage. Hopefully Angelina hadn't noticed the direction of his gaze.

That got a laugh from Lynch, though to George's consternation it clearly also caused his hand to move even lower on Angelina's back. "Well look, if you ever want to come to a match, get in touch with my manager; he can get you tickets."

George wondered if some sort of reciprocation was required here – though Fred might exact retribution from beyond the grave if he ever gave anything to a bloke who was all over Angelina like Lynch was. Luckily, Angelina herself saved him from saying anything besides a terse 'thanks' by interjecting, "I'm sure you're busy, George; we won't keep you..."

He wasn't, but he let her drag Lynch away, ruminating darkly. It was something he'd been vaguely aware of – Angelina certainly hadn't been monastic since the Battle, and once or twice she'd brought her current boyfriend round to gatherings that Alicia had foisted upon both of them, always while neglecting to mention that the other had been invited. The thing was, Angelina didn't even seem to _like_ her blokes, really. Even George could tell that, in the way that her shoulders always seemed slightly stiffened around them, in the way that she seemed to lean away from them. Even now, watching her with Aidan Lynch, George wondered why she bothered. It reminded him of the months during their fourth year, when Angelina'd gone out with a boy a year above them just to spite Fred into noticing that she fancied him. So was she trying to spite him for getting heroically killed?

As the night progressed, George found himself drinking glass after glass of wine, whilst apparently not eating anything because he didn't _remember_ eating anything, and he supposed that could've just been the wine going to his head but he didn't think he was that far gone. Ron was happy catching up with old schoolmates and forging so many of the connections that George had already forged. George talked for awhile with a funny bloke who introduced himself as Rolf Scamander, apparently some friend of Alfie Flumineus's, who seemed as though he wanted to be at the release party about as much as George did at that point, before he wandered over to a door on the far side of the room which proved to lead to the roof of the building.

Muggle London lay spread out before him, the Thames visible as a dark swathe to the southeast, pocked by pierces of light as a barge or pleasure boat passed by. He could make out the London Eye and just to its left, the pylons of Hungerford Bridge. The skyscrapers of the City were visible, and St Paul's as well, lit like an oil painting. Curiously, he turned to face Diagon Alley, wondering if he'd be able to see it. But no, it was too well hidden even for a wizard.

"Oh," a voice said, making him turn to face it. Angelina was standing in the doorway that led up from the loft below, looking startled. "I didn't know––"

"Join me, Johnson," George said grandly.

Her eyes narrowed but she took a few steps forward, eventually coming to stand more or less next to him. Wrinkling her nose, she remarked, "You've been drinking."

"That obvious?" Why had he drunk so much again? Odd, now he couldn't remember. Something to do with Fred, or maybe with Angelina herself.

Angelina folded her arms across her chest, almost hugging herself as she clenched her hands into fists under her arms. No Lynch, George realised belatedly. He wondered what she'd done with him; why she'd come up here by herself. He asked her the latter question, and she replied, "Just wanted a bit of fresh air."

_That_ he could understand. Now she said it, he'd a vague recollection of it being warm and loud in the loft. Instead of agreeing with her, what came out of his mouth was, "So you and Lynch are…" He waved a hand vaguely, waiting for her to fill in the blank, but instead she just raised her eyebrows and he was forced to finish, "Together?"

"Yes," she answered. There was an odd, barely detectable note of defiance in her voice.

"Hm."

Her hands clenched more tightly. A detached part of George's mind wondered how that was even possible – she already looked as though she was going to draw blood on her palms with her fingernails. "What's that supposed to mean?"

George shrugged. "I just think it's a little funny; I mean I've seen you with a couple different blokes – more than a couple really—"

"Oh, sod off, George, it's not hurting anybody if I get a little happiness this way," she snapped.

Something about it – about the casual way that she was trying to replace his brother – made something ugly in him raise its head. "So what," he started, not caring about how belligerent he sounded, "you're just tarting around because you miss him—"

The jinx hit him so fast that he didn't have time to draw his wand, let alone use a Shield Charm, and George supposed, through his drunken haze, that he should have remembered how fast Angelina's spellwork could be when angry, which she was at the minute. Extremely angry. And unusually – because it had been Fred that had infuriated her – that anger was directed entirely his way.

He was knocked off his feet and pain shot through his whole body, though it flared out rapidly. The look on Angelina's face, however, did not. "_How dare you, George?_" she bellowed. "How _dare_ you judge me when you've got—" There she stopped, looking momentarily confused, and George wondered if she'd been about to say _when you've got no idea what I've gone through_. It must have been second nature, really, a stock phrase made that way because of the truth in it; an easy phrase to pull out for most people, but here it didn't apply and that appeared to shake her. He wasn't so far gone in drink that he couldn't find his feet again, but he didn't. Instead he sat there stupidly, looking up at Angelina Johnson, who had loved and been loved by his twin, and she was so furious and sad and lonely that he didn't have the courage to stand back up and face her. After a long few moments, her wand still clutched tightly in her fist like she meant to use it again, she said, "Fuck this," and dropped her arm to her side.

George knew he deserved the epithet, though he couldn't deny that the situation did just as much. Before he could say anything, before he could swallow the sudden nausea and find the balls to apologise to her, she whirled, her shoulders clenched tight, and stalked back inside. Maybe she'd have Lynch kick his arse. The only consolation there was that he doubted Lynch could. Not for nothing had George been a Beater at Hogwarts.

Instead of getting to his feet, he fell onto his back, knowing that the impact with the concrete roof would have hurt more if he wasn't drunk. It was a cloudy night and the low scud was illuminated by the lights of London. The swirling cacophony of the low clouds made him feel slightly sick. He certainly couldn't hold his drink the way he had done a year ago. Probably that was a good thing, though at the minute, with his gorge halfway up his throat, it felt very bad.

He had just alienated one of his best mates, a girl who'd put up with him through all the rubbish he'd ever pulled on her, who'd forgiven him – not without occasionally hexing him first – for all but ruining her year as Quidditch captain at Hogwarts, for putting Stinksap in her shampoo, for charming her braids to serpentine around her head like snakes, for a hundred indignities that she'd suffered at his hands; a girl who laughed at his jokes unabashedly loudly, who looked the other way on his and Fred's trouble-making most of the time and occasionally even joined in; a girl who was unashamedly loyal and brave; a girl who'd been able to tell him and Fred apart and had chosen one of them but had never, never made him out to be an imitation of the boy she preferred. And he had bollocksed it all up because he was pissed and stupid, the pathetic thing being that it was probably more to do with being stupid than being pissed.

If the wine hadn't made him feel miserable enough, this would do the job.

What he really needed to do was find her and apologise, throw himself on her mercy which, despite all her efforts to the contrary, was boundless (at least after she'd had time to cool down). Except at the minute he didn't feel deserving of her mercy. He didn't feel like much, in fact, except being sick.

"George? What are you doing?" Ron's voice cut across his reflections. Unless his ears deceived him, concern laced Ron's tone. Maybe Angelina had directed him up here. Or maybe Ron had combed the building looking for him, though that seemed unlikely. Or maybe it didn't. He knew Ron felt responsible for him – which had always rankled him; he certainly didn't need looking after as though he was a depressed thought away from ending it all; but it wasn't Ron, it was Mum putting him up to it, so it was really her that rankled him, not wee ickle Ronniekins. Anyway it was a little touching. Just a little. Hovering on the puke-worthy side of touching, really.

"Lying here," George answered. "What's it look like?"

"Like you're lying there," Ron admitted. "Seems like a bit of a daft thing to do."

George considered that for a moment. "Wine and I don't mix well." Wine, Angelina plus bloke, and him didn't mix well.

Ron traversed the roof until he was looming over George. "You can stand up, right? I don't fancy carrying you through Muggle London."

"Thanks Ron, that brotherly care is heart-warming." Nevertheless, he pushed himself into a sitting position, reeled from the motion, and put a hand on the ground to steady himself. "I suppose Apparating home's out."

"After the time you spewed on me, yeah." Ron knelt next to George and narrowed his eyes. "Seriously, are you all right? Thought you'd passed out when I got up here."

Instead of answering, George rubbed a hand across his face. "How'd you know I was up here?"

"I didn't. I was just looking for you." He scrutinised George for another second. "Priscilla Zonko's down there – wants to talk about franchising a location."

George groaned. "What did you tell her?"

"Well, considering I couldn't find you, I figured you might be indisposed when I finally did. I said we'd get back to her."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Ron stood up and offered George a hand. "Think I'll be off in a few. Want to stop by Hermione's with me? I think she's making dinner."

"No, but thanks," George said, taking his brother's hand. It was instinctual to turn down invitations of this sort, though this time, he regretted it a little, and not just because Hermione's culinary skills had improved markedly since she'd first started cooking for herself. "You're a lucky bastard, Ron, you realise that? Your girlfriend's making you _dinner_ when you've been out sipping fine wine with socialites."

With a grin, Ron said, "You don't need to tell me." Then, he said again, "You should come by."

"Merlin's beard, Ron, I'm fine—"

"It's nothing to do with you being fine or not," Ron cut him off, a fiercer look in his eyes than George was used to seeing. "I just think it'd be nice if you'd come by, all right?"

He opened his mouth to refuse again, but then he shut it without saying anything. It was probably because he'd been lying on the ground looking comatose that Ron was inviting him. Then again, what did he have planned for the evening? Go back to his flat, sit there alone and think about what a tosser he'd been to Angelina? "Yeah, all right," he said impulsively. "If you think Hermione won't mind."

"Hermione said I was to Stupify you if you wouldn't come along of your own free will," Ron replied cheerfully.

George put a hand to the earless side of his head. "I'm halfway there, anyway." He wouldn't've minded being Stupified at the minute, actually. Between too much wine and what had happened between him and Angelina, some peace and quiet would've been nice. But then, a little defiantly, he remembered Parvati.

The next morning he sent the lovely Miss Patil an owl.

* * *

><p>They did not franchise to Priscilla Zonko. Ron was for it, but George barely listened during their meeting with her and said no politely but firmly.<p>

"I think you're mad," Ron informed him as they walked back to the shop.

"Look, if it'd been somewhere besides the Hogsmeade location..." George began, but he didn't want to finish the sentence. He didn't think he could explain, anyway. It was because he and Fred had been so close to opening up a branch in Hogsmeade. Not a franchise, not Zonko's running another shop with the Weasley name on it, but a proper branch. It didn't feel right, letting someone else take their first expansion right out from under them. And any sensible person would have pointed out that no one would've been taking anything, but George didn't care. Not the Hogsmeade location. He'd open it up himself or it wouldn't open. Or Priscilla Zonko could open up her own damn joke shop there. She wouldn't; didn't have the temperament. It was her father'd had the mind for it, but he, like so many others, had disappeared in that terrible year. "We'd make more money opening up the branch there ourselves," George finally finished.

Ron looked at him seriously. "Then we should do it."

George focussed his gaze ahead, on the always colourful and kinetic display window of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Of course they should do it. He and Fred had been probably weeks from it, back in '97, but what with things the way they'd been…certainly there weren't many students let out in Hogsmeade once the Death Eaters had taken over at Hogwarts. They'd sworn it would be one of the first things they'd do once the War was over. Almost two years later, and George still hadn't got round to it. The money was there, the demand was certainly there. It was something in _him_ that wasn't there. "We will," he said, reluctantly binding himself to the idea. "Just not right now."

Thankfully, Ron left it at that. He was more perceptive than he let on, Ronniekins was. Or maybe he was more perceptive than Fred and George, together, had ever given him credit for. George thought that, alone, he gave him rather more. As they walked into the shop together, Ron asked, "Want to have dinner with Hermione and me tonight?"

George plucked a Pygmy Puff out of the hands of a young girl who hadn't yet been taught not to squeeze small cuddly animals and put it on his shoulder. "Thanks for the offer, bro, but I've got plans, actually."

"Oh, Lee coming round?"

"No." They reached the till, where Verity was just finishing packing up a customer's purchase. "Thanks, Ver. Had lunch yet?"

"Not yet," she said, sounding cheerful nonetheless. "How was your meeting with Ms Zonko?"

He stepped around to the other side of the counter. "Tell you later. Have something to eat, first."

As she left, Ron looked at George and picked up where he'd left off – "Alicia and Sloper?" he guessed.

"Er, no," George replied. "Incidentally, Jack Sloper's got a lifetime ban from this shop. The man's an insufferable git; I don't care if him and Alicia marry and have ten children."

"Right, I'll remember that. Who are you seeing, then?"

George gave the Pygmy Puff an absentminded pet. "I'm having a drink with Parvati Patil, if you must know."

Looking at George sharply, Ron asked, "Really?" When George nodded, Ron added, "Well, that's—well done, mate!"

George didn't really think the look of absolute shock on Ron's face was warranted. "You seem unduly surprised." That was putting it lightly. Ron's eyebrows were raised practically to his hairline and his mouth was hanging open slightly.

"No," Ron said quickly, trying to rearrange his features into a more casual expression, "no, I'm not. It's just – well, you haven't, you know…"

"Figured it was time to stop disappointing the witches of Britain," George said, saving Ron from having to voice the embarrassing fact of George's nonexistent romantic life. "And abroad, for that matter."

Several more customers queued up to the till at the moment, so the conversation was halted until they'd rung them up, and then Ron asked, "Where are you meeting her? The Leaky Cauldron?"

Shaking his head, George replied, "No, some place in Covent Garden. Near her flat, I guess. She says it's wizard run but Muggle friendly, whatever that means."

Ron shrugged. "S'pose you'll find out."

"Suppose I will," George agreed.

When he set out to meet her – walking seemed easiest; he hadn't been to Covent Garden recently and couldn't remember where he was supposed to Apparate to – he felt slightly odd. Not nervous or anxious; there was no need for _that_ just because he was meeting a woman, but something just…off. He wondered if he was doing this because he really wanted to or because he was trying to prove something to someone. Problem was, he didn't know to whom he wanted to prove…whatever it was he was trying to prove. _If_ he was trying to prove something. Parvati had been nice to talk to and look at for fifteen minutes at a party, but he wasn't at all sure that he could hold up his end of a romantic outing for much longer than that. Mostly, he just didn't know if he was ready for this, which felt like the most daft thing in the world to think. But he supposed grief could do that to a person. It had him, apparently.

Before too long, he found himself approaching a small, upscale pub on a narrow street. Parvati was already standing outside, and when she spotted him, she smiled. "Hi," she said a little breathlessly when he reached her side. "You found it."

"Hi," he replied. "And yeah, you'd think I'd be hopeless with directions, wouldn't you, lopsided as I am." Parvati looked unsure of herself at this, and George quickly changed the subject, making a mental note of the fact that the ear _missing_ wasn't a problem, exactly, but jokes about it might be. "I've been in the area before, though I've never seen this place."

The uncertainty fled from Parvati's face and she said, "Well, I hope you'll like it. Should we go in?"

They each ordered a pint at the bar – George noticed an extensive list of Muggle brews, and next to it, another list that he suspected Muggle patrons might find their eyes sliding over without really seeing. Then they found a table along one wall. As they settled themselves there, Parvati commented, "Padma – my sister, I don't know if you remember – thought it was hilarious that I was going out with you. She says no matter what, the first thing she thinks of when she hears the name Weasley is the Yule Ball. She went with Ron, remember?"

George guffawed. "That's right. And he spent all night mooning about Hermione and Krum. Tried to get him out on the dance floor myself, but he wasn't having any of it."

"Are Ron and Hermione together now?"

"Very much so."

"I thought so. And Ginny – well, obviously her and Harry, that's a bit more difficult to keep quiet." Parvati took a sip of her beer. "I did a piece on Ginny right after I'd started at the _Prophet_ and right after she started with the Harpies. We talked a lot about what she did at Hogwarts that year." There was no need to specify what 'that year' referred to. "The _Prophet_ didn't want any of it; they cared more about what trainers she wore during matches, but…I thought people would've liked to know." She paused for a second, and then added, "Say hello to her for me."

"Will do," George said, and then, "Haven't got that promotion yet, have you?"

She made a face. "Not since last week, no."

"I'll have to start paying better attention to who's writing what in the _Prophet_; I've never even noticed your name."

"Somehow I never imagined you reading it at all."

George grinned. "Well, I don't, really, but I can always start."

"I'd be flattered," Parvati laughed.

She was fun and different from the women he spent most of his time around. And she did not, aside from the one oblique reference to her last year at Hogwarts, want to talk about any of the bad parts of the past. After about two hours, George said he didn't want to keep her out too late, but then asked, "Can I walk you home?" as he helped her with her jacket.

"What a gentleman," she said, swiveling so that she could see him. "I'd like that."

It had rained while they were inside but had stopped, and the pub was only a short walk back to her flat – a few streets over, past a dark, leafy park to her building, a brick complex that faced out on one end towards the park. Whilst walking they talked easily about the very good beer the pub served, about the Muggle at the table next to them who'd seemed to know more about the establishment than she was letting on, about the vagaries of living in London, and anything else that came to mind. Parvati was easy to talk to and didn't expect anything from him except that he act as though he was entirely whole and unchanged from the man – well, the boy – that she'd known at Hogwarts. And he didn't mind acting the part.

Once they'd reached her building, they stopped outside the door and faced each other. "Well," he said.

"Well," she echoed.

Figuring he might as well take the chance, he leaned down and kissed her softly. She returned it, and the two of them stood there, a normal couple kissing each other good-night, for several seconds. Merlin, how long had it been since he'd kissed a woman? Well over two years. Too long, considering he'd quite enjoyed it, and had, by all accounts, been rather good at it. He put one hand lightly to the small of her back and he knew, in that instant, that seeing Parvati had been the right thing to do, and that he very much wanted to keep seeing her.

When they broke apart, Parvati took his hand lightly. "I'd like to do this again."

"Yeah?" George asked, and she nodded, smiling. "How about next week? We can progress to dinner?"

"That sounds perfect," she replied, standing on her toes to kiss him again briefly. Then, with that smile that he was beginning to think of as enigmatic, she turned away from him. He watched her let herself into the building before turning and walking away himself, his hands in his pockets, his trainers scuffing on the wet asphalt.

Covent Garden had a sizable magical population, mainly due to its proximity to Diagon Alley. He and Fred had briefly considered letting a flat there to get away from the shop when they weren't working, until both of them had decided that they didn't particularly _want_ to get away from the shop. George had been on this particular street before, though, he realised suddenly. Unless his memory was faulty, Angelina Johnson lived in one of these buildings. In fact, he remembered exactly which one, from the one time he'd been there. It had been a party she'd thrown just after she'd signed with Ballycastle – just after she'd let the flat, really, and he remembered how bare the place had been, and yet how she'd filled it with her exuberance and vibrancy.

He stopped on the footpath for a moment in front of her building without thinking about it, and his eyes found the lit window that he knew to be hers. For a moment, he considered letting himself into the building and knocking on her door. The longer he stared at the little square of her window, though, the more he knew he'd never do it. Funny, he'd never considered himself a coward – rather the opposite, actually; he'd never questioned getting Sorted into Gryffindor – but the idea of facing her after what had happened at the book release party caused a decidedly heavy pit to form in his stomach. He didn't know what it was, exactly. Women had been angry at him before. Of course, he'd never said something quite so bad to those women as he had Angelina. He cursed himself again for saying it – for even _thinking_ it – but he couldn't bring himself to do the one thing in his power to make it better: apologise.

Because she might not accept an apology. That was what it was, wasn't it? As long as he hadn't made the overture, he didn't know how things stood between them. Of course he _did_; where things stood was that he'd been a twat who needed to beg her forgiveness, but if he actually made the effort and was rejected, then he'd know once and for all that whatever relationship he had with Angelina was over. For some reason that he suspected went beyond that they'd merely been childhood friends, this was a uniquely terrible prospect.

With a twist in his gut, he tore himself away from the sight of her window and continued his walk home. He'd planned on Apparating but it seemed, suddenly, better to expend some energy on walking. It might – though he very much doubted it – drive Angelina Johnson, and his guilt, out of his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Apologies for the delay in posting this chapter. My _Harry Potter_ inspiration abandoned me in favour of _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ in mid-October, so I've had to set this fic aside for the time being. I've finished up through chapter five, though, so I will try to get the next few couple chapters posted more regularly.

* * *

><p>There was a second, third, and fourth time with Parvati, the last of which had ended with them in the flat that she shared with her sister, who conveniently was traveling for business. He liked her. She was beautiful, she was fun; she laughed at his jokes. She didn't ask about Fred. And she didn't <em>avoid<em> the subject the way some people did, rather she just…didn't bring him up. Still, the first time he saw Padma – her own scar evident from the Battle in her shriveled left hand that stayed clenched at her side – there was a twinge of warning in his heart. Maybe Parvati didn't care to talk about Fred because she simply couldn't understand, because her twin sister was very much alive. Or maybe she didn't want to understand what it was like, because Padma had come close enough to being taken from her. He shook the feeling off, though, suspecting it might have more to do with him than with her. Parvati hadn't known Fred. They'd been two years older than her, after all. There was nothing to talk about, nothing to reminisce about. Not like the way it was with Lee, Alicia, Katie, and Oliver. And certainly not the way it was with Angelina. She was a class unto herself on the issue. Well, maybe not entirely unto herself. He supposed, really, that he shared it with her.

One warm Sunday in March, with the shop closed for one much needed day of rest per week, he glanced up from his table in the laboratory and saw a shaft of yellow sunlight shining straight down the corridor and pooling on the floor outside. For a moment he stared at it blankly, his mind still stuck on asphodel measurements, but then his gaze focussed on it and he noted the particular bright quality of the light. When he'd been at Hogwarts, light of that sort shining through the windows of the common room had demanded removing oneself outdoors. George saw no reason to break that fine tradition just because he was almost four years out of school, though outdoors would have to consist of a trip round Diagon Alley and probably a visit to old Florean Fortescue's, now run by his son. Just before he walked out the shop door, he considered asking Parvati if she wanted to join him. For a second, he thought about it, one hand poised above the doorknob, but then he decided she'd probably rather catch up with her sister, who was supposed to have returned from France the previous night.

The sunlight warming his shoulders was a welcome change from the gloomy, overcast, and rainy days of the past several weeks. Spring was putting in an early appearance, and the denizens of Diagon Alley were taking full advantage of it, not to mention witches and wizards who just fancied a Sunday shopping. George made his way towards Florean Fortescue's, which was plenty busy, and when he finally reached the counter, he ordered a chocolate ice cream cone with the parlour's special exploding hundreds and thousands.

As he waited for his ice cream, he glanced out the shop front idly, and his eyes lit upon a familiar, slender form outside, her dark, curly hair cascading onto her shoulders; intent on the window display at Quality Quidditch Supplies across the street. "Oy," he said to the pimply wizard behind the counter, "could you make that two of those?"

He made the decision without thinking, without giving himself the chance to consider whether or not this was the moment that he finally manned up and apologised to her. She was outside the ice cream parlour at the very moment that he was inside – if that wasn't a sign, what was? More importantly, he'd no idea if she even liked chocolate. Or ice cream, for that matter. But a person was mad not to like Florean Fortescue's. Now, she might reject it on the grounds that it was coming from him, which he couldn't blame her for, but the ice cream itself seemed like the surest bet for a reconciliatory gesture.

Not wanting to wait for the change, he left a Galleon on the counter and then, taking both ice cream cones carefully, said, "Keep the difference as your tip," before pushing the door open with an elbow and walking outside. Angelina, luckily, was still studying the Quidditch gear on display across the street.

He didn't allow himself to stop walking and only drew a breath before he stopped at her side and asked, "Wizarding world's a small place, isn't it?" Without any explanation, he held the second ice cream cone out to her.

"George!" she exclaimed, apparently before she could think to do otherwise, and then, finding herself holding the ice cream cone after unthinkingly taking it, "What's this?"

"It's an apology. For being a git."

"Chocolate ice cream?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

George sighed. "No, look, it's not _just_ chocolate ice cream, I've got it with these exploding hundreds and thousands for you."

As Angelina looked at it, several of the brightly coloured hundreds and thousands burst, sending up showers of flavoured sparkles. George watched her, trying not to feel anxious. Funny how that got really difficult every time he remembered, uncomfortably, that the last time he'd seen her he'd all but called her a tart. Trying not to look as anxious as he felt, then. He could see a multitude of emotions rippling across her face, though they all went by too fast for him to decipher. What he _could_ do, though, was see that she hadn't slapped him, punched him, hexed or jinxed him, or dropped the ice cream, either on the ground or him. This, he could not help thinking, was very encouraging.

"I was way out of line, Angelina," he said in a quieter, more serious tone. "In fact 'git' doesn't really cover it." He paused to see if he could judge if his words were having any positive effect, but her expression was totally unreadable. "I didn't mean it. The minute I said it I wanted to jinx _myself_ for being an idiot." He paused again and wondered if he should add that he'd been pissed, besides, but decided at the last second that it sounded too much like an excuse. "It's killing me thinking I said that rubbish to you."

For a long moment, she was silent, and George almost held his breath. Then, she met his eyes. "Oh, stop it, George, I know you're just being dramatic," Angelina said, but there was a hint of a weary smile on her face.

He seized upon that and shot her a smile of his own. "Yeah, all right. Maybe a bit. But seriously, it's pretty upsetting imagining you angry at me."

For a long moment, she looked disbelieving, but then the ice scream started dribbling as it melted in the pleasantly warm March sun, and she had to quickly slurp at it to keep it from running down her fingers. As she did so, their eyes met again, and she looked so ridiculous – and obviously knew it – that he couldn't help guffawing.

There was a split second then that he thought he might have miscalculated, but then a grin cracked her face. "You know, you've got chocolate ice cream all down the back of your hand," she pointed out, causing George to swear good-naturedly and attend to it. For several minutes, their first priority was dealing with their rapidly melting ice cream cones, with Angelina snorting at one point that between his freckles and the smears of chocolate ice cream, he looked as though he was suffering a particularly severe case of spattergoit. They walked as they ate, and before long they found themselves approaching Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

For a moment, George hesitated, but then he asked, "Want to come in for a minute? Up to the flat, not the shop. No invitation needed for the shop, obviously." Of course, there'd been a time when the flat was open to her as well.

She cocked her head and tilted it back, looking up at the windows of the flat that faced onto Diagon Alley. Her expression was reflective, not the barely-contained sadness he'd seen there every other time they'd had a conversation in the last three months, but an honest musing about what it would mean to accept his invitation.

"Yeah," she finally said, turning her head to look at him. "I'd like that."

It made him happy, in an uncomplicated sort of way, to show her in, through the empty and darkened shop and up the stairs at the back to his flat. He didn't ask about Aidan Lynch. Implicit in her forgiveness of his wankery was the fact that he mind his own bloody business.

"Your housekeeping hasn't improved," was the first thing that Angelina said when he opened the door.

"Sorry," he said hastily, waving his wand in the vain hope that some of the mess would clear. A couple of plates rattled and his spare shop robes flopped feebly, but other than that, it had no effect. "Ignore that."

"No magic is that powerful," she said, sounding amused. Then, for a moment, she stood in the open doorway, poised to enter but not quite going through with it. George wondered if she thought she'd made a mistake coming with him, but then he saw her draw a quick, fortifying breath, and she stepped inside. "Somehow I expected everything to look the same," she said wryly.

The comment made George glance around. "Doesn't it?"

Angelina stared at the couch for a moment. In profile, her face looked troubled, a flicker of foreboding passing over it before she looked back to him. "No." Then she sighed and George saw her breath hitch in her throat as she let her eyes wander round the room again. When they made their way back to meet his, she said, sounding as though it took some hidden well of strength to do so, "It's obvious you live here by yourself."

George held her gaze before he had to break it. He half got the feeling that she was expecting something from him beyond a simple affirmation of this still-terrible fact. "Well, I do. Unfortunately."

With a nod, the tension across her face eased. "You do," she agreed. Maybe she'd been expecting that he'd kept it all the same; like some sort of mad shrine, and she'd come face to face with her old life.

"I haven't even got most of his things anymore," George informed her, hoping it wouldn't make the tension come back. Of course, there hadn't been many things that had been Fred's alone, but where possible, he'd given things away to friends or donated them to charities. He could remember asking Alicia, just over a year previously, if she thought Angelina might want something of Fred's. Alicia had paused, her mouth open in preparation to answer, and then she'd closed it thoughtfully. "Just a picture, maybe?" she had replied. There weren't many of Fred and Angelina alone but George had parted with all of them, pretending not to notice as Alicia had blinked back tears.

Then, Angelina gave him a strained smile. "I'm sorry, George, I didn't want to come up here and just talk about Fred."

"I don't mind," he said honestly. She was never condescending or pitying the way so many people tended to be. "Gets a bit depressing after awhile, though," he added.

Her smile became much less strained and she said, "Then let's not." She looked around, and then, without an invitation, plopped down on the couch. "Tell me how things are. Tell me about the shop and about your family. Everything."

George laughed and sat next to her. "Tall order. Let's see, I suppose the major Weasley news is my sister-in-law being pregnant."

"Is this your only sister-in-law or one that I've not met?" she asked.

"No, it's Fleur." He leaned back into the old couch which had always smelled faintly of gunpowder. "Bill's convinced it's a boy but Fleur insists it's a girl."

She raised a querying eyebrow. "And what do you think?"

With a grin, he replied, "All I know is that if, boy or girl, it takes after Fleur, then it'll be the most spoilt wizard or witch in Britain. Mum and Dad's first grandkid and one-eighth Veela – the wizarding world won't stand a chance."

"No, I don't suppose it will," Angelina agreed, smiling. "What else? I'm serious; tell me everything, I––" She broke off, then finished, "I've missed just speaking with you like this."

"I get that a lot," George replied, prompting a snort from her. But he knew what she meant – once they really started talking, there was plenty to talk about. Once their respective careers gave way to other topics, they covered, amongst other things, the likelihood that at least one British or Irish team would make it to the finals of the next Quidditch World Cup in two years ("England lost two players during the War," George remarked, "I just dunno if we can recover from that."

"But Wales only lost a few reserves," Angelina reminded him.

"India'll win the Cup, anyway; they're bloody killing everybody they play," George sighed), Minister Shacklebolt's effectiveness as Minister of Magic, the severe reduction in flavours at Florean Fortescue's, the shameful lack of a decent curry house in Diagon Alley since Namboothiri's had closed, how truly horrid Dolores Umbridge had been (always good for a few minutes of abuse, even all these years later), and what their large circle of friends and acquaintances had been doing for the past two years. George hadn't known, for example, that Lavender Brown was training to be a Healer, and Angelina hadn't known that Neville Longbottom planned on applying for the position of Herbology professor at Hogwarts once Professor Sprout retired in a few years. In the middle of it, he finally remembered some of his stunted manners and offered her a cup of tea.

Finally, Angelina glanced out the west-facing window. The sun was shining through it and she glanced back towards George, saying, "I've taken up most of your day."

"Yeah, but it was the nice sort of taking up my day," he replied with a crooked smile.

"Hm, I'm sensing some sarcasm," Angelina remarked, and he didn't bother to correct her.

As they got up, they went back to debating Quidditch ("I won't make you choose between the Bats and the Harpies for who wins the League," Angelina remarked, and George had replied, "Oh, you can make me choose; it'll obviously be the Bats. Unless Ginny asks, then it's the Harpies"). He walked down to the door of the shop with her, deciding aloud that he needed to start going to more Quidditch matches and Angelina agreeing whole-heartedly. When they reached the door, Angelina said, "Thanks for the tea."

"You're most welcome, dear Miss Johnson." He noted, happily, that she didn't flinch away from this – admittedly ridiculous – endearment, but rather smiled. "Any time you fancy a cuppa, you know where to come."

She laughed. "Thanks. A decent cup of tea is such a difficult thing to come by, after all."

"Well," he replied, "what can I say, it's that special Weasley boy touch…and likely several years worth of accumulated filth."

In response to that, she just raised an eyebrow. Merlin, had he ever missed her. It occurred to him, without thinking about it, that Parvati would have been put off by a joke like that. "How droll," Angelina remarked, a flicker of laughter in her eyes. She put a hand on the doorknob, but then she hesitated, looking at him thoughtfully.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she replied quickly, but then removed her hand from the doorknob and pressed her lips together. "I was just wondering," she began, "if that invitation for lunch still stands?"

George grinned at her. This morning, when he'd seen her outside Florean Fortescue's, he'd been half convinced that she never wanted to speak to him again. He was pretty bloody happy he'd got that second ice cream cone for her. "Obviously," he replied. "When are you free?"

A smile spread across her face. "Tuesday. One-thirtyish? I've only got practice in the morning that day."

"One-thirty, that's a bit long to wait for lunch; I'll obviously have to have a proper breakfast on Tuesday." The smile didn't leave his face as she snorted. "Want me to meet you somewhere?"

Putting her hand back to the doorknob and opening it, she said, "No, I'll come here. I'm not fussed about where we eat, really…I'm sure we can come up with something." She stood in the open doorway for a moment while they faced each other, and then she smiled just slightly uncertainly. "I'm looking forward to it."

He put out a hand to hold the door open for her. "Me too."

For another moment, they stared at each other, and then, with a self-conscious duck of her head, Angelina stepped outside, turned and gave him a small wave – which he returned – and made her way down Diagon Alley to continue whatever she'd been doing before they had so fortuitously encountered each other. George turned away to go back inside before she'd disappeared, but the image of her, walking down Diagon Alley into a blaze of afternoon sun, lingered in his mind long after he'd gone back to work.

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><p>It was the Leaky Cauldron for them the first week. Simple, uncomplicated, and easy to agree upon; they'd been drawn to it more than decided upon it. The next week – because they agreed, once they'd finished their rather long lunch (Ron had grumbled that he shouldn't have bothered coming back at all just for a few more hours) that the outing had been a success, and maybe, would it be prudent to repeat it? – they had sandwiches and sat outside at a wobbly wrought-iron table, because the March sun was shining warmly again.<p>

"When's your sister-in-law due, again?" Angelina asked as she wiped pickle off her face with her napkin.

"Sometime in May," George replied. "She's enormous though."

Angelina rolled her eyes. "Oh, that's lovely. Please tell me you've not informed her of that."

Putting a hand over his heart, he replied in scandalised tones, "I'd never say such a thing to my most beautiful sister-in-law."

"Isn't she your _only_ sister-in-law?"

"Details, details."

"Well," Angelina said, ignoring him except for a quick flicker of amusement in her eyes, "I was wondering if I should get her and Bill something for the baby."

George sat back in his chair, feeling it over-balance for a moment. Leaning forward again to keep from tipping over, he said, "You don't have to do that."

One of Angelina's eyebrows was arched. "I know I don't have to. I want to know if you think it would be all right. Not too weird."

Though he wondered which part of it she thought might come across as 'too weird', he just said, "No, I think they'd appreciate it." Then, he added, "Since when have you been so thoughtful?"

"I've always been thoughtful!" she replied in an outraged voice.

Though he didn't say it – confining his response to a smile – he knew that she was. He would always remember their first year at Hogwarts, how when his and Fred's birthday had come round, they'd got presents from their friends, all labeled 'to Fred and George'. Angelina, alone of everyone else, had got _each_ of them something: one small, wrapped parcel for each of them, with their names printed alone in her neat hand. At the time he hadn't cared; it had suited them to be more or less interchangeable, but as they'd got older George had thought back on that moment and wondered why it was that Angelina had always seen their differences.

And not just those small differences in appearance between them – she'd fancied Fred right away; he'd come to know that about her later, that she was smitten just seeing him at Platform 9 ¾ – but other things that he'd never understood how she picked up so quickly, like their voices, their intonations, their handwriting – which was quite different if anyone had cared to notice, not that George had ever imagined anyone would until a day that he and Fred had been chucking their unfinished Transfiguration essays at each other from across the common room and one had bounced off the top of Angelina's head. She'd picked it up, unrolled it, and lazily returned it – to George. His name hadn't been on it; _he_ hadn't even known whose was whose in the fracas, and he'd asked how _she'd_ known. "Your As don't look anything alike," she'd replied. He wondered now if A had been the letter she'd gravitated towards because there were two of them in her name; two chances for her to see, every time he wrote out her name, what her first initial looked like in Fred's handwriting.

This was not to say that their friends couldn't tell the difference between them. But sometimes – not all the time, but occasionally – there'd be a hesitation, a once-over to check for the markers that distinguished them as individuals. George still caught people doing it occasionally, even though the markers were now painfully obvious. Angelina, though – he'd never seen her do it. Ever.

They decided they'd meet again the following week; same time, same place, and went their separate ways. It was funny, but when he'd first seen her in December, his first impression of her was that she desperately wanted people thinking she was okay when she obviously wasn't. It didn't seem that she needed to try as hard anymore.

The day following his second lunch with Angelina was the closest Wednesday to the end of the month – and thus, ordering day. Wednesday because for some reason it was their least busy day, and the end of the month because it was the sort of arbitrary deadline that Ron and Verity both liked. George and Fred had done things more haphazardly – ordered supplies as they'd needed them, but Ron said he couldn't work that way. George had said Hermione was having a bad influence on him. Verity had then promptly agreed with Ron. "You know, I didn't have to hire you back," George had said sourly to Verity.

"Yes, you did," she'd replied matter-of-factly.

He'd grumbled but couldn't come up with any rational reason – at least a reason that didn't involve the words, 'this is the way Fred and I did things' – so Ron and Verity's way it was. It seemed a silly thing to have got upset by, but in those days, it had been the little things that'd upset him most.

George bit the end of his quill absent-mindedly, staring down at the order form he was filling out and debating whether or not to shout at Ron to hurry up with taking stock in the back room. Scheherazade's Exotics Bazaar – known affectionately as One Thousand and One Class A-E Tradeables – had a better price on its five gallon container of Doxy venom than the two gallon, but the more one bought at a time, the more Ministry forms one had to fill out. "Oh, sod it," he muttered, then quickly looked up to make sure no innocent children had heard him. Luckily, the closest one was two rows away in the trick sweets section. Looking back to the order form, he scratched in a three next to the 'Doxy Venom – five gal', splitting his quill in the process.

With a long suffering sigh, he chucked the useless thing back over his shoulder and ducked down below the counter to grab a new quill.

"Hello, George!" a voice said enthusiastically and suddenly – so suddenly that it caused him to jump and slam his head against the bottom of the counter. "Oh," the voice winced, "sorry, I've startled you…"

"S'all right," George said, his eyes watering a little as he righted himself and confronted a brunette woman with glasses. "'Lo, Audrey," he greeted, returning the hug she gave him when he got to his feet and went round the counter. "Is my stick-in-the-mud brother with you?"

"He is," Percy said as he appeared behind her, closing an umbrella carefully to avoid getting water on the merchandise. The two of them hugged tightly, and when Ron appeared, the greetings were repeated. "Have the two of you got any time for lunch?" Percy asked, straightening his glasses.

George cast an eye around the shop. They were doing a decent business but nothing that Verity couldn't handle, and he asked her to mind the till while they were out. Both him and Ron grabbed jackets to go out in the rain, and when Percy held his umbrella over Audrey's head as they walked towards the Leaky Cauldron, Ron remarked that he'd never realised Percy'd had it in him to be so considerate.

"I didn't," Percy replied with a good-natured grimace.

"Ah, character growth," George sighed melodramatically.

Audrey laughed and took Percy's arm, kissing him on the cheek. "We should all be so self-aware," she remarked, meeting Percy's eyes and holding them. George and Ron shared a glance and he could see that they were both wondering why Percy and Audrey had come by in the middle of the week like this. Percy came by the shop often enough, but rarely during the day, because he didn't like to take more than an hour for lunch. It was all quite mysterious and unlike his older brother. Then again, Perce had become, for him, remarkably more easy-going in the past couple years. Audrey'd had a lot to do with that – she'd rounded out his consuming guilt over the way he'd betrayed his family, only to return to the fold and have Fred die next to him.

George shook himself. Whatever the reason Percy and Audrey were there, it was clearly good. Audrey couldn't keep a smile off her face and Percy – serious, ministerial Percy, was practically grinning. He didn't need to spoil the mood by thinking about all the things that had gone wrong.

By the time they got to the Leaky Cauldron, George was seriously wishing he'd brought an umbrella of his own and wondered if he'd impale anybody if he were to Summon it from his current position. Ron had pulled his robes up over his head but George had slightly too much dignity to do the same, so it was with wet hair that he sat down at the table the four of them chose. Percy went to the bar to put their orders in while George and Ron caught up with Audrey, mostly about their respective careers. "We're on full-time preparations now for the second of May," Audrey said, sighing and stirring the cup of tea she'd ordered. "People tend to get...carried away with the celebrations."

"Percy said you pull a couple of all-nighters a year," Ron said. Indeed, both of them remembered how he'd gone on about the dedication a 'friend of his in the Obliviation office' had to her work the previous May. They'd teased him once they'd found out the friend was a woman, but when their older brother had gone beet red they'd cut it out. The next week, Percy had brought Audrey Wells round the Burrow for a Weasley family dinner and everyone had noticed the way they'd held hands under the table.

"I was up forty-eight hours straight last year," she said cheerfully. George and Ron both winced, but Audrey smiled. "I can handle just the one night a year. Or two, as the case may be. Anyway, it's nice Obliviating people who've mostly seen the best of us instead of the worst. I meet loads of nice people."

"But they don't remember you after you've met them, do they?" George asked.

"Well, no," she shrugged, "but I remember them."

It was difficult to argue with that, and the conversation turned to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Audrey asked how the Polypills were selling. The answer was brilliantly – they'd heard, in fact, that Polypills had been banned within a week at Hogwarts. George thought that might have something to do with the fact that they'd settled on doing Filch with his stringy hair in rollers as one of the options. The two of them – him and Ron – had been pretty pleased with what they thought was a record-short time in which a joke product had been legal at Hogwarts.

When Percy sat back down, Audrey looked at him, her eyes alight like she was bursting with news. After a moment, Percy broke eye contact with her and said, "Well, we actually wanted to talk to the two of you today to...er, tell you something."

"Spit it out then, Perce," Ron said good-naturedly.

He looked at Audrey again, the barely-held-back grin on his face again. "I asked Audrey to marry me and, well..."

"I said yes!" Audrey interjected as Percy covered her hands with his.

"Perce!" George exclaimed, immediately getting to his feet and bounding to the other side of the table, where he pulled his older brother into a hug. Percy was grinning idiotically, and George told him "Congratulations, Perce," before he clapped him on the back and moved to embrace Audrey. "Are you sure you know what you're getting into?" he asked her.

She gave him a bright smile. "I do, and I can't wait."

Ron elbowed George out of the way so he could hug Audrey as well, and it took a moment for the four of them to notice Tom, the barman, standing with their lunches on a tray, a bemused expression on his face. They all hastily sat again and took their plates from him. "It'll be a small wedding," Percy said without prompting once they'd all started eating. "We thought that would be best."

"For everyone involved," Audrey added.

"D'you know when it'll be?" Ron asked.

Percy and Audrey glanced at each other. "We were thinking November," Audrey replied.

"And it's going to be a Muggle wedding," Percy said. "At least the ceremony."

"Perce, we haven't decided—" Audrey began, but Percy squeezed her hand and reiterated, "It's going to be a Muggle wedding. That way we can invite friends of Audrey's – Muggles."

She smiled adoringly at him but then joked to George and Ron, "I don't want to have to Obliviate my parents' friends."

George thought that the most amazing thing about that remark was how Percy laughed; that and the mere fact that Percy was marrying a woman who _joked_. Character growth indeed. He'd always known he'd liked Audrey – after all, anyone that could make a joke about wiping people's memories had to be _some_ fun, but that cemented that as a sister-in-law, he was going to get along with her just fine.

"Audrey's maid-of-honour's a Muggle," Percy informed them.

"If she says yes," Audrey laughed, "which is no guarantee. My best friend," she explained to George and Ron. "I think she's always suspected _something's_ a bit different about me but we've never really discussed it. I think she knows everything's better off that way."

Percy laughed a bit self-deprecatingly. "Not that I helped matters. Couldn't think of what to say when she asked where I worked."

"You said in the Minister's office, didn't you?" George asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"And she asked, 'which minister?'" Percy said. "So I told her the Ministry of Justice." He paused for effect. "It turns out she's a solicitor."

Audrey laughed into her Gillywater while Ron choked on the beer he'd half-swallowed.

Clapping Ron casually on the back as his younger brother coughed and spluttered, George asked, "I don't suppose you got off easily and found out she's a solicitor on the Shetlands?"

"Of course not," Percy said with a grimace. "Her office is in Whitehall."

"Nice one, Percy," Ron was able to manage, having finally stopped choking.

Laughing, George added, "Better you than me; at least you could probably fake it. I'd've never even come up with Ministry of Justice. So job well done, I say." He raised his glass and his older brother chuckled and clinked his glass of Gillywater against it.

The conversation naturally turned to the Ministry at that point, and more specifically Percy's position there. The Order of the Phoenix disbanded now (not that anyone was complaining), George hadn't seen Kingsley Shacklebolt in ages, and he was always curious to know how the Minister of Magic was getting on from the point of view of someone working in his office. The answer was that he was swamped with work, even after nearly two years. The Wizarding world seemed more or less recovered on the surface but its wounds went deep, and Kingsley never stopped trying to heal them. "He'll be Minister for years to come," Percy said assuredly. There was no blind devotion in his tone, now, just a healthy respect and admiration for his boss. For once, Percy had a boss who deserved it.

After over an hour, they all agreed that their respective jobs needed to be got back to, and they headed back towards the door and out into the rain. Ron pulled his robes up over his head again but George resigned himself to getting wet.

"By the way, George," Percy said, "you know Mum wants to have a birthday party for you this year."

George watched raindrops dripping off Percy's umbrella. "Yeah, she's mentioned it." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Audrey's face, openly sincere in her sadness for what his birthday meant for him. She'd never known Fred; never met him – she'd been two years above them at school and in Ravenclaw besides. Funny how life was really and truly moving on: Bill and Fleur were going to be parents soon; and now Percy getting married. Even littler things, like Harry reaching the halfway point in his Auror training, Hermione getting her first promotion at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures... He supposed he could shut himself up in his flat again, like he'd done last year, but birthdays weren't going to stop, were they? Life wasn't going to stop, even if he tried his damnedest to make it.

"I'll talk to her," he said, shifting his gaze from the steadily dripping water to Percy's face. "See if we can't throw something small together." Percy looked surprised, and George added quickly, "Mind you, the first is a Saturday; it's going to be mad in the shop. We'd lines out the door last year and _that_ was during the week."

"Of course," Percy replied, still sounding slightly shocked.

"I don't want her going to any trouble, not after we've just had Ron's birthday," George went on. Ron looked at him knowingly – well, right, when had he ever taken such a thing into consideration before? But both of his brothers allowed him his dignity. "Listen, we won't keep the two of you any longer, especially not while it's pissing down like this––" There was another round of congratulations and hugs, and then George said, "Audrey, see you on Saturday?" to make sure that she knew that 'small' didn't mean she wasn't invited.

"Of course," she said graciously, managing to sound both unsurprised and pleased at the same time.

As they headed back towards WWW, the rain began coming down harder, and the two of them quickened their paces correspondingly. "Wonder if Hermione would want to have a Muggle wedding?" Ron mused as they dodged puddles. He'd stopped bothering trying to keep his head dry with his robes, and his hair was now just as matted to his head as George's.

"Why, proposed to her, have you?"

Ron spluttered for a minute or two before managing to spit out, "That's not what I meant."

"No?" George asked pleasantly. "What did you mean, then?"

"I just meant – you know, I mean, _intellectually_ speaking—"

"That should be a chore for you," George interjected lazily.

Ron glared at him. "I just mean, Hermione's Muggle-born like Audrey—"

"You _don't_ say."

"—so I just wondered, that's all. There's probably Muggles she'd want to invite to her wedding, right?" Ron looked uneasy, and George couldn't resist one more jab at him.

"Maybe she'll marry a Muggle," he remarked, "then it won't be much of an issue, will it?" The ill look on his face made George add, feeling a twinge of guilt, "Then again, I don't much see Hermione doing that." Ron narrowed his eyes at him, and he said, in a much kinder tone, "Ron. You know she's just waiting for you to ask."

"Who says I'm going to ask?" Ron said immediately, though there was a definite bounce to his step the rest of the way back to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Ron – _Ron_, his little brother Ron – had actually brought up marriage, the marriage that everyone with half a brain could see was eventually coming, but still. _Ron_ had brought it up. George couldn't resist a wry smile, though he tried to keep it to himself. Life was going on, all right. Life was well and truly going on.


	4. Chapter 4

The first person through the door of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes the morning of the first of April was, to George's surprise, Parvati. "I just wanted to pop in to wish you happy birthday," she said, standing on her toes to kiss him swiftly. "Here, I went back in our archives and found this for you." From her handbag, she pulled out a copy of a page from the _Daily Prophet_, dated to late April, 1996, that held announcements. On it was noted the day that Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, of 93 Diagon Alley, had opened.

He studied it for a second and then looked at her, smiling. "I never even saw this."

Looking pleased, she said, "I had a vague memory of Hermione saying something about it at breakfast one day at school, so I checked. Funny the things you remember, isn't it?"

"Absolutely," he replied. He remembered every detail of that day, though he supposed there was nothing odd about that. He'd never forget waking up at four in the morning, everything quiet in the still, grey, pre-dawn light, and lying in bed staring at the ceiling, his heart pounding. He'd decided he'd shut his eyes and go back to sleep; he didn't want to be exhausted on the first day of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes's life, but his resolve had failed him after less than a minute, and he'd said quietly, "Fred?"

"Thought you were awake," Fred had answered, and he'd abruptly sat up and swung his legs out of bed. "This is going to be our finest hour," he'd declared fervently. "This is _it_, George."

"We don't open for five more hours," George had pointed out.

"So," Fred had shrugged, "five extra hours to make it perfect."

Both of them had already thought it was pretty perfect as it was, but the shop brought out their inner perfectionists – their inner Percys, Fred had grimaced – and the five hours had gone by in a flash. And both of them had been riding such waves of elation that it never occurred to either of them to feel exhausted until late that night, after they'd drunk several toasts to themselves with the bottle of Ogden's Firewhiskey that they couldn't afford but had bought anyway. Fred had fallen asleep with his head on the counter, his elbow resting against the till, while George had done sitting upright in the chair that they'd pulled out from the back room, his neck bent back at an awkward angle while his hair brushed the wall behind him.

George felt his throat close at the memory and swallowed a little frantically to open it again. It was his birthday, his and Fred's; he was bound to be—emotional, but he didn't need his girlfriend to see it.

Sometimes he didn't know how it was possible to miss someone so much and to keep on with everything.

Parvati seemed to notice something was wrong, because there was a look of sympathy, or maybe empathy, on her face. She'd a twin sister, after all. "Have a nice day, George," she said softly, reaching up to kiss him. She'd a tendency to avoid touching the spot where his ear had been. "We're still having dinner this weekend?"

"Yeah, of course," he said, squeezing her hand for a second.

With another quick kiss, she shot him a smile and left in a tinkle of jewelry, and mercifully, George didn't have much more time to think throughout the day, because his prediction that the crowds would be mad had been spot on. He worked straight through lunch, though he insisted that Ron and Verity both take at least a few minutes to themselves if they didn't want their full hour (they refused that and George couldn't help feeling a sting of bittersweet happiness that both of them loved the place, maybe not as much as him, but close).

Ron and George had discussed extending their business hours just for the day, but in the end had decided to keep their normal Saturday closing of four-thirty. George's birthday dinner was supposed to be at eight o'clock and neither of them wanted to rush straight to the Burrow the minute they'd closed up. It still took fifteen minutes to shepherd last-minute customers out and ring up their purchases, but when the last would-be prankster was out the door, George locked it and the three of them promptly collapsed onto the nearest flat surface. Verity was the only one who ended up in a chair, and she sighed tiredly as she flailed a hand towards the open till. "I think that was even better than last year," she announced wearily.

"Seemed like it," Ron agreed from the other side of the counter, which he was leaning against as he sat on the floor.

"Good thing it's Sunday tomorrow," George added. The Pygmy Puffs were trilling softly above him and he reached up a hand to stroke them through the bars of their cage.

The statement was met with sighs of gratitude and for a few minutes, the three of them just sat there, recovering from the previous eight and a half hours. Finally, Verity hauled herself to her feet with a groan and asked, "Do the two of you need any more help tonight?"

"Thanks Ver, we're fine," George said. "Go home, have a drink, play a prank."

She smiled and came over to him, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead. "Happy birthday," she said fondly. "Don't think I haven't got you something, but it can wait until Monday."

"My employees giving _me_ presents – that's exactly as it should be."

She just shook her head, still smiling, and left off the fact that he'd given her a sizable bonus for Christmas as well as a gift, and that he never forgot her birthday. "See you two next week," she said before letting herself out, leaving the two brothers sitting alone in the shop.

For awhile, they sat in silence, both recovering their strength. Afternoon sun spilled in through the windows. "Is Parvati coming tonight?" Ron finally asked.

George finally struggled to his feet, holding on to the Pygmy Puff cage for support. "No," he replied. He hadn't even thought to invite her. Nor was he wishing, now Ron'd brought it up, that he had. He wondered if that was normal.

Ron shrugged his shoulders against the counter. "Right. I'll continue keeping my mouth shut to Mum about her, then."

Making his way over to the till, George said, "Thanks. Appreciate that." The last thing he needed was his mother asking questions about a girlfriend whom he liked, of course, but wasn't serious about. Yet. He didn't even know if that 'yet' was appropriate. And it wasn't that he wasn't grateful for his siblings most days, but when both Ron and Ginny had scoffed at him for asking them to keep quiet about him and Parvati, Ginny asking, "You didn't really think we'd say anything, did you?" he'd been reminded that he was _really_ grateful for them. "Why don't you head home, Ron – I'll clean up tomorrow." He paused, then added, "You can help, if you want."

"I don't really _want_ to, but I will," Ron replied, pulling himself up with the aid of the counter. "Hermione and I'll see you at the Burrow in a couple hours, okay?" With a stretch and a yawn, Ron Disapparated.

George stood surveying his empty shop for a long moment. The shelves looked gilded with the sunlight on them. Maybe they were. He was – and Ron was – not rich, exactly; that was, he didn't _feel_ rich, because he was a shopkeeper with only one employee, and he was in his own shop, running the till, helping customers, and tidying up seven days a week. But compared to what he'd had growing up…

He smiled sadly. Fred had hated being poor. George hadn't much cared for it, either, but he hadn't _hated_ it like Fred had done. They'd made so much money right away – lost loads after they'd had to close and hide out at Auntie Muriel's and had to go back to owl order – but now, with Ron helping, they raked in the Galleons. Ron's maths weren't really rubbish; in fact his younger brother had a business sense that had impressed George from the very start. Several months after he'd reopened WWW, George had tried to pay Harry's loan back – with interest – but Harry had flatly refused. "You don't have to be so bloody noble and—and _good_ all the time, you know," George had snapped at him. Harry's jaw had moved like he was holding back anger and George had found himself perversely hoping that The Boy Who Lived would punch him in the face. He'd have deserved it. The marvel was that no one had done it to him all that summer.

Then Harry had sighed. "Is it going to be weird between us if I don't accept this from you? Do you _need_ me to take this from you? I'm not trying to prove something, George, but if you are then that's fine. I get it, believe me."

George had just stared at him, the Gringotts banknote for the full amount still clutched tightly in his hand. "We're not—_I'm_ not a charity case," he'd said, savagely forcing down the catch in his throat. "I don't need money." Not then, at least, because through the course of the summer he'd made up for the losses of the previous year. People wanted to laugh, and the irony was never lost on George that they came to him for that.

"I know," Harry had replied. "I'm not trying to— Look, like I said, if it's something you need to do…"

George had silently proffered the banknote to him again and Harry had reluctantly taken it. "Fred wanted to pay it back," he'd said shortly, and the look in Harry's eyes had reflected that he'd already known.

For a minute more, George remained standing there, one hand hooked idly around the elbow of his other arm. Fred wouldn't have been amazed at what Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had become in the past two years, because he'd never doubted its success. Still, George hoped that wherever he'd gone, he could see just how brilliant it was.

Finally, George shook himself out of his reverie and let himself out of the shop. Once he and his mother had decided that the birthday dinner was happening, he'd promptly asked Tom at the Leaky Cauldron to procure a keg of butterbeer for him, and he walked down to the pub, trying his best to enjoy the warm afternoon. Plenty of the customers that had been in Wheezes were still out in Diagon Alley and he exchanged greetings with a number of them, including a small boy whom he instructed how to use his new pair of Extendable Ears. Then, butterbeer obtained, he levitated it back to the flat.

With the butterbeer, George decided it was easier to Floo than Apparate, so he lit a fire with his wand, took a handful of his plentiful stock of Floo powder (he preferred Apparition; hardly Flooed anywhere) and tossed it in, then rolled the keg into the fireplace before following himself and saying clearly, "The Burrow!"

He materialised in the fireplace of his childhood home, brushing soot off himself. "Brought a keg of butterbeer, Mum," George announced to the empty kitchen as he rolled it out. There was no answer and, bemused, George poked his head out the kitchen door to check if his parents were in the garden. They were not, and the house was strangely quiet. His father, George supposed, was probably out in the shed, but he'd expected his mother to be in the kitchen cooking, because his mum could always be counted on, amongst other things, to make far too much food. Mashed parsnips were sitting out on the table and something was roasting in the oven, but those were the only signs of his mother. Unless she'd turned invisible – and he very much doubted that she had, or even that she'd ever want to – she had to be somewhere else in the Burrow.

Moving through the kitchen, he poked his head into the sitting room to check for her there. Empty as well, though there was a pile of tiny, knitted baby clothes in his mother's favourite chair, with the knitting needles still floating above it, flashing in the sunlight as a half-finished bootie hung from them. The skein of yarn had run out. George pulled his wand out and pointed it at the needles, murmuring, "_Finite incantatum_." At once, the needles stopped clicking and fell on top of the already-finished baby clothes.

Frowning at his mother's mysterious absence, he swung around to check upstairs. "Mum?" George tried as he ascended the staircase. A tiny, "Oh!" of surprise from his parents' open door told him where his mother was, and he hesitated for a second on the stairs, wondering with some trepidation if he wasn't interrupting...er..._something_ between his parents. The absolute silence in the house mercifully suggested otherwise, so he continued the last few steps towards his parents' bedroom.

His mother was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, photo albums spread out on the rug around her. She was hastily closing the one that had been open on her lap. "George," she said, "you're here already—"

George stood in the doorway, frozen for a moment by the sight of the photo albums that Mum had pulled out – and that she was currently attempting to slam shut and cram back into the bookcase. A much younger Fred and George were waving up at him, brand new (well, they'd been secondhand, but at ten years old, he and Fred hadn't cared) Cleansweep Fives clutched in their hands. As he watched, Fred jumped on his broomstick and sped out of the frame. George remembered their tenth birthday well, and Fred _had_ got right on his broomstick. George had followed a moment later and once they'd been coaxed back, Ron had begged to ride one of the Cleansweeps. Fred had refused, though not without dangling the prospect that he'd acquiesce tauntingly in front of Ron. George had let Ron have a short ride, though.

Then, he saw how his mother was carefully keeping her face averted and he finally processed how thick her voice had sounded. She was trying to push the photo album that had been in her lap back into the bookcase but it kept flopping open, eluding her efforts. "I wasn't expecting you for another hour," she said with a desperate sort of cheerfulness that made his heart ache.

Quickly, he came into the room and sat next to her, gently relieving her of the photo album and setting it in his own lap. "Mum," he said, smiling at her. She gave a watery sort of laugh and George reached up and put his arm around her. Idly, he let the photo album fall open.

His childhood confronted him – him and Fred, small and full of boundless energy, grinning madly and fairly bouncing round the photos. There were birthdays – their fourth? Fifth? No, fourth, because there they all were at King's Cross on the next page, after Ginny's and Percy's birthdays. Bill, already in his Hogwarts robes, prepared for his illustrious school career, Charlie looking jealous, Percy without glasses, Ron, squirming to get out of Dad's arms, and the baby, Ginny, waving a chubby fist from the security of Mum's. Fred and George were climbing on the luggage trolley before Mum motioned at them to get down, her mouth moving soundlessly. Then Charlie's birthday, Bill home for Christmas – and there were the toy brooms they'd got; Merlin they'd loved those, George had shared his brother's rage when Ron had gone and broken Fred's. Ron's third birthday, and then the two of them again. George flipped to the end of the album, where Ginny was making daisy-chains on the last page while Fred, George, and Ron chased gnomes in the background.

His mother leaned against him. "I meant to be baking your cake," she said, her voice still sounding thick.

"I don't need a cake, Mum."

"Of course you do," she said determinedly. "I was doing some tidying – lost track of the time..." She looked down at the photo album and this time, the naked grief on her face was unmistakable. "My boys," she whispered in such a soft tone that George had to strain to hear it. He wouldn't have if she'd been on his bad side.

"You've still got us," he said bracingly. "Though I'll admit it's not always easy picking up Fred's slack—"

She looked at him swiftly, her eyes bright but suddenly blazing. "George, you are _not_—no one, _no one_, is expecting that you—has _ever_ expected that you—"

"Be Fred as well," George finished for her. "Yeah, I know. Just a joke. Pretty poor one, I guess."

Mum sighed and wrapped one of her arms around him, but he'd no illusions that she was comforting him. It'd been the other way round for years; well before he'd lost the ear. Fred had been rubbish at it, after all, and with Bill and Charlie gone, and Percy in his traitorous git phase, that had left George when Dad hadn't been available, which thank God he nearly always had been. "You're a good example to me, Georgie," she said, a slight quaver still in her voice, though she was sounding better.

George grinned. "C'mon, Mum, you don't really think I'm going to fall for that, do you? On April Fool's Day?"

At that, his mother finally laughed. "I forgot! As silly as it sounds, I actually forgot."

"Now, _that's_ depressing," George grimaced.

She looked up at him and smoothed his hair down, her eyes going for a second to the earless side of his head. He'd been taller than his mother since he was twelve years old; not that it had ever mattered. She didn't need height to dominate her household. "I do mean that, George – you're a good example."

"I'm not a good example to anyone," he scoffed. And nor did he want to be.

With a smile, she said, "All right, dear, if you say so."

"I do," he said firmly, patting her on the shoulder. Then, he got to his feet and offered her his hands to help her up. "Seriously, the only tears you should be shedding on my birthday are tears of rage. Like the time we blew a hole in our bedroom ceiling, remember?"

Thankfully, she laughed at the memory and didn't react to or remark upon his mixed pronouns. Taking his offered hands and standing up, she remarked, "I think that was the only time I ever scared the two of you into listening to me."

"Of course; you said if we did it again you wouldn't let us go to Hogwarts in the autumn." Ironic, that, considering in the end she'd been threatening punishment if they _didn't_ go back to Hogwarts. "We were going to sneak onto the train when you and Dad weren't looking if it turned out that you'd meant it. Figured we could count on Charlie not to tell on us." He was pleased that he got another laugh from her, shaky though it might have been. He knew that his and Fred's—_his_ birthday was just as difficult for his mother as it was for him, it was only that they dealt with it in very different ways. Impulsively, he leant down to hug her; she squeezed her arms around him tightly.

"I'm happy you came tonight, George," she said.

He gave her a peck on the cheek. "Happy to be here, Mum." Which was not strictly true. Part of him would've still preferred to be shut up by himself, but he was never going to get on with his life if he couldn't…well, start getting on with his life. Letting his family celebrate his birthday seemed like a good start to that.

They heard the door open downstairs and Dad called, "Molly?"

"We'll be down in a minute, Arthur!" she called back.

George waited for his mother to leave the room first before he followed. In the doorway, he paused, and took his wand out. With a wave of it and a muttered incantation, the photo albums shuffled themselves back into place on the bookcase. Then he clattered down the stairs after her, hit, as he did it, by a profound wave of déjà vu. The staircase induced a sort of tunnel vision – it was always the same rug at the bottom of the steps; always the same view to the opposite wall over the top of the couch and the little table were his mum always kept a vase of flowers cut from the garden. It could be any time in his childhood, coming down the stairs, because the Burrow hadn't changed, really; not ever in the last twenty-two years. His parents lived here by themselves now, obviously, though with the six children, plus spouses/significant others, the house rarely only had the two of them in it. Soon the baby'd be there, as well. Mum was going to be over the moon about it.

The clock, obviously, was gone. The last time George had seen it was the evening of the first of May, 1998, when it had got left at Auntie Muriel's. He didn't know where it had gone, and he didn't want to.

"George, I didn't know you were here!" his dad exclaimed as George followed his mother into the kitchen; he gave him a brief hug and said, "Happy birthday, son."

"Thanks, Dad," George replied, trying not to feel awkward with all the attention. He and Fred had got used to celebrating their birthday at school and the well-wishes felt strange. Overly effusive and a shade too hearty; maybe not entirely genuine…

No, he knew that last bit wasn't true. The last time they'd all lived together – with Auntie Muriel – their birthday had passed practically unnoticed. No one was thinking about birthdays. They were thinking about Ron, and Harry, and Hermione, not to mention Bill and Fleur, out alone at Shell Cottage, and all their friends besides. They all barely kept track of the date, anyway. The two of them hadn't let it pass uncelebrated, obviously, but it'd been muted and quiet. The next day Mum had realised she'd forgotten and baked a cake, clearly feeling guilty – they'd said don't – and Auntie Muriel had said it wasn't fluffy enough. Ginny'd suggested chucking a dungbomb into her room once she'd gone to sleep and they would've, Fred especially, but George had finally said, "Mum's got enough to worry about without Auntie Muriel shrieking at us." The other two had reluctantly agreed that this was true.

"Can I help with anything, Mum?" he asked.

"No, of course not," she said, shooing him away. "I'm sure everyone will be here soon."

As if on cue, green flames flared in the fireplace and a body appeared, spinning, before Ginny stepped out and said brightly, "Hello, Mum, Dad—happy birthday, George—" while embracing and kissing all of them on the cheek. "I came direct from the stadium," she said, "Harry said he'd be along soon, though."

"Ginny, they aren't really making you train at weekends?" his mother asked in a horrified voice.

"Just for a few weeks," Ginny replied breezily. "What can I help with here?"

Mum looked disgruntled at the news that Quidditch was at least a six-day-a-week activity, but she said, "You can start peeling potatoes, if you don't mind." Then, she glanced over her shoulder and asked, "Arthur—outside, do you think?"

"I'll get the tables set up," Dad said.

George opened his mouth to offer his help again, but his mother cut him off, "Why don't you go sit in the living room, dear? Have a glass of butterbeer—" A glass floated to his hand and filled with said beverage while his mum shooed him out of the kitchen. Ginny shot him a sympathetic smile – Mum's behaviour at the minute wasn't so different from that of Ginny's seventeenth birthday, which they weren't too far removed from. He stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered back into the sitting room, straightening up his mother's knitting, which she seemed to have forgotten about, and moving it off the chair. Then he sat down, staring at the spot on the wall where the clock had hung. There was still just an empty space there. Fitting, he couldn't help thinking bitterly.

There was a _crack!_ as Ron and Hermione suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, Hermione's now-famous beaded purple bag hanging off one shoulder. "Dead useful, that is," he remarked before they'd turned around and seen him. Hermione jumped and whirled to face him. "Keeping my presents hidden in there, are you?"

"What makes you think it's more than one?" Hermione asked, though she was smiling. The two of them went into the kitchen to greet his parents but Hermione soon returned. Ron, evidently, had been recruited to assist with dinner.

Hermione seated herself on the couch. "Ron said it was a busy day at the shop."

"Mad," George said. "And I s'pose you just laid about all day?"

"No, of course not," she said sniffily, as though the idea of spending a Saturday relaxing was highly offensive. "I've been working on a report for Mr Diggory."

"_For_ Diggory?" George asked, raising his eyebrows. He was all too familiar with Hermione's opinions on her boss's attitudes towards house elves, as well as the fact that she'd been working diligently to change them since she'd started at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

Hermione pursed her lips and shrugged, acceding his unspoken point. "If I can just convince him, then I'm sure he'd co-author the legislation that I'm drafting."

"Yeah? And how's that coming?"

"I'm sure I'll wear him down eventually." At that, George snorted. Hermione smiled quickly at him. "I feel a bit useless just sitting here," she admitted, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "Mrs Weasley, are you sure we can't help?" she called.

"Of course, dear!" Mum called back.

A moment later, Ron came into the sitting room, followed by Harry, who'd apparently Apparated into the kitchen. "She says she's got enough help with Ginny there," Ron said by way of explanation.

"Bungled the buttered peas, didn't you?" George asked, and then, in the same breath, "All right, Harry?"

"Hey, George," the younger man said with a grin. "Happy birthday. And I think it was the roast beef he was bungling."

"Never liked roast beef anyway," Ron grumbled.

"Oy, whose birthday is this?" George asked.

The five of them sat around talking until the remaining Weasley siblings arrived (with the exception of Charlie, who'd sent an owl several days previously saying he'd be out in the mountains for the next month). Percy and Audrey arrived by Apparating but Bill and Fleur, what with her in such an advanced state of pregnancy, Flooed. Soon, all eight Weasleys, plus a Potter, Granger, and Wells, trooped outside to eat. Dinner was huge, the company was good, and the atmosphere was genuinely festive and loud. It was the first time they'd all got together since Percy and Audrey had got engaged, and the subject dominated the conversation. After everyone else had toasted George's birthday, Bill stood up and proposed a toast to Percy and Audrey, which they all happily drank to.

"It's your turn next, George," Bill said with a grin once he sat back down. "You need to find yourself a girl."

George snorted. "Don't start planning any weddings for me. I think it'll be a good long while." At that comment, Ginny glanced towards him sharply. His mum either hadn't heard or was ignoring him.

Fleur, one hand resting on her belly, smiled at him. "Do not say zat, George. You will be surprised, I think."

"Hm," he said noncommittally.

She looked like she wanted to say something else, but in the end left off, just smiling knowingly. George tried not to let himself feel irritated by it and mostly succeeded – it was impossible, for the male family members at least, to stay annoyed at Fleur for more than about thirty seconds.

After cake came presents. Goggles from Charlie – the same kind that he used on the job in Romania, with a note that read, _So you don't lose an eye as well—I've seen what some of your potions can do_; from Bill and Fleur, a tie made of Acromantula silk that they'd got in France (Ron eyed it warily, as though it was somehow going to produce an actual Acromantula); from Percy – and Audrey, bless her, had agreed to put her name on it – a book on cauldron varieties, which he supposed was the closest he could get to a whole book on cauldron bottom thickness. Though, George had to admit, it looked like it'd be useful knowing what potions would do what to his cauldrons. He was replacing them constantly. Ginny and Harry had got him season tickets for the Holyhead Harpies, plus the nicest set of Omnioculars he'd ever owned. Ron and Hermione's present was a wizard's chess set made of polished mahogany, with dragon's tooth chessmen ("I can't believe you don't have a set; pathetic, that is," Ron scoffed). His mum and dad had got him a new set of dress robes; a dark blue somewhere between navy and indigo. "I'll wear them to the wedding," he promised, running his hands over them.

He thanked everyone profusely, and then it was time for cake, despite the fact that all of them were still well stuffed from dinner; a massive chocolate cake dripping with frosting and aglow with candles. The whole thing was really a bit much; George couldn't help feeling as though a lot of fuss was being made over nothing. People turned twenty-two every day. There was nothing special about his doing so. But then, everyone was happy; even, he thought with a start, him. So maybe it was worth it after all.

The family naturally split into its constituent pieces as the evening went on. Bill, Percy, and Dad fell into a discussion about politics ("Look, I think Scrimgeour proved that being Head of the Auror office doesn't _necessarily_ a good Minister make—"), while Mum and Fleur discussed the impending arrival of the new baby, as well as preliminary wedding planning, since Audrey flitted back and forth between both conversations.

Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and George ended up out in the garden as evening fell, bringing their glasses of butterbeer with them. Gnomes capered along the edges of the flowerbeds, staying out of the reach of George's feet. Ron was successful once lobbing an apple core at one of them, which made the men roar with laughter and the women look on disapprovingly, though Ginny had to quickly cough and turn her face away to hide her initial outburst of laughter. Grey clouds streaked across the sky in red-lit trails as the sun sank beneath the horizon.

"Shame it's getting dark; we could've played a game of Quidditch," Ron remarked.

"We could drink something stronger than butterbeer and I reckon we'll be up for it," George replied, lazily taking a swig of said beverage.

Ginny stretched her legs out in front of her, holding the soles of her bare feet just above the blades of grass. "_You_ lot might; I'm not about to play in the dark and risk an injury, though."

"Hermione'll play, right?" Ron asked, nudging her with an elbow.

She laughed. "Yes, of _course_ – I'm rubbish on a broomstick; I can only imagine the disaster I would be at night. I'll leave the two of you to it."

With a shrug, Harry said, "I'd play."

"There probably aren't even enough broomsticks," Ginny remarked.

Ron counted on his fingers. "Bill's, Charlie's – he got the new one when he went off to Romania, didn't he leave the old one here?"

"Yes, but that's still only two," Ginny pointed out.

"Fred's," George added. "Fred's Cleansweep." All heads pivoted towards him, then just as abruptly turned to look anywhere else. "Stop it, you lot," he said irritably. "What use have I got for two broomsticks? Of course I brought it back; I reckoned there'd be some grandkids eventually who could use them—stop looking at me like that," he cut off to add, at no one in particular, and all of them. Ginny and Hermione, in particular, had both got teary looks on their faces and looked as though they were…_proud_ of him. "Merlin's saggy—I've not _done_ anything; it's just an old broomstick, which to be perfectly honest never really recovered from its breakout from Umbridge's office. Always had a bit of a list to the right after that."

"George, we know," Hermione said, addressing what he _hadn't_ said more than what he had. At least the teary look had gone.

He looked around at them, his siblings and his two inevitable future in-laws – his own childhood friends – and grumbled, "I reckon you do." And meant it.

"Well," Hermione said, breaking the silence briskly, "that still leaves the problem of the three of you likely killing yourselves flying about in the dark."

"Be kind of funny, wouldn't it?" Ron grinned. "I mean, the bloke who defeated You-Know-Who, snuffing it playing two-a-side Quidditch?"

"Excuse me," Ginny laughed, "who else've you volunteered to play in this death-defying game of yours?"

The three men spent the next few minutes trying to persuade Ginny or Hermione to join in, but finally Ron threw his hands up in defeat and announced, "Fine; we're going to get some more cake," as Harry stood up and stretched. "Anyone else want any?"

There was a chorus of 'no's' from the rest of them, though Hermione got to her feet as well and said, "I'll have another butterbeer, though."

"I'll get it," Ron offered, but Hermione kissed him on the cheek and said, "I know you won't have a free hand by the time you've got all the birthday cake you want."

"You're encouraging him stuffing his face," Ginny said warningly, which was met with a laugh from Hermione as they started back towards the house.

For a moment, Ginny and George sat in silence. The gnomes, their audience greatly diminished, were settling down, though every now and then they'd do something to make Ginny giggle. As the twilight deepened and turned to night, frogs began to trill. Ginny set her empty glass down on the grass, and as she straightened back up, she asked finally, "Are you having a good birthday?"

George considered that for a second before answering. "You know, actually, yeah." He looked over at her. "It hasn't been too terrible."

She reached over and patted his knee. "Not too terrible's a good start, I suppose."

"Or a good end."

"Was it a bad day?"

He looked over at her. "No. For a bad day, it wasn't so bad."

Ginny nodded and neither of them said anything for a moment. Then, she asked curiously, "Why didn't you bring Parvati tonight?"

George shrugged, slouching further in his chair to look up at the starry sky. "Because I'm not anywhere near a bringing-her-round-my-parents' stage with her yet," he replied.

Ginny remained silent for another minute. "Do you think you'll ever be?"

"Dunno." He shifted slightly in his seat and glanced at her. "Why do you ask?"

She pressed her lips together. "Something you said earlier. To Bill. I understand that you don't want Mum fussing over your love life, but you looked like you'd forgotten all about the fact that you've _got_ a girlfriend."

For a few minutes, he didn't respond to that, not mulling over it so much as feeling the truth of it. "I dunno, Gin," he sighed. "I'm not exactly right—you know, in the head," though when he said it, the gesture he made was more towards his heart. "But I don't mind ending up everyone's funny bachelor uncle. It worked for Uncle Bilius, didn't it?"

With a small laugh, Ginny agreed, "Everyone loved Uncle Bilius," though the lights from the house reflected off a certain sadness in her eyes. The door opened and Ron, Harry, and Hermione came back outside, avidly discussing something. Ginny glanced over her shoulder, then abruptly stood up and walked behind his chair. She hugged him around the shoulders and said quietly, "I love you, George; you know that, right?"

"Of course I know; c'mon, Gin, don't be so girly. You're embarrassing both of us." Nevertheless, George reached up an arm and gave her a hug as best he could.

"You're not fooling anyone," she said fondly.

"Just myself," he replied cheerfully, and she laughed and sat back down as Harry, Ron, and Hermione returned. Ron and Harry ate their enormous pieces of cake while George fiddled with his new Omnioculars, zooming in on Ron's mouth and then playing it back in slow motion, expounding loudly on his abnormally messy chewing. Finally, Ginny relieved him of them and told him firmly that he could have them back when he left.

"Which, speaking of…" Harry said, glancing back towards the house.

"I thought we were playing a game of Quidditch!" Ron objected.

"In the dark? Really?" Harry asked.

"He's lost his bottle now," Ginny commented, grinning at her boyfriend.

George stood up. "Let's. C'mon; if we fall and break our arms we'll just have Hermione patch us up."

"Me?" Hermione laughed, though she followed them as they got to their feet.

Harry Summoned the three broomsticks from the shed and the five of them made their way up to the paddock mostly in the dark, with their wands and the Burrow's lights and the stars to see by. All in all, George thought, as far as a twenty-second birthday without a twin brother went, the day had been rather a success.

* * *

><p>The third lunch with Angelina had to be cancelled (an owl arrived in the shop informing him that she expected her training to run late that day) but that same day, Lee Jordan came strolling into the shop five minutes before they were due to close and informed George that the old gang was meeting for drinks later in the week, and would he be interested in coming along?<p>

"The old gang?" George repeated.

"You, me, Alicia, Katie, Angelina, and maybe Oliver; I'll see how I feel," Lee rattled off. "No SOs."

"No Jack Sloper, you mean," George said, crossing his arms over his chest. From near the windows, he heard Ron say, "Sorry, we're closing up now, can I help you find something in particular?" and the answer, "Oh, no, just browsing, we're just on our way..."

"You think Alicia would bring him?" Lee asked, making a face. "It's sort of awkward having to tell her not to."

"You'd no problem saying it to me."

"That's you," Lee replied breezily.

Ron came strolling up to the counter, having cleared the shop of all stragglers and locked the doors, saying, "All right, Lee?"

"Wotcher, Ron," Lee replied, clapping him on the shoulder.

"I doubt it," George finally answered in reference to Alicia. "She knows we don't like him."

"Who?" Ron asked curiously.

"Sloper," Lee and George replied at the same time, in various tones of dislike.

Ron nodded, then added thoughtfully, "Did I ever tell you he chucked his bat at me once?"

"On purpose?"

"No, of course not. If he'd done it on purpose he'd never have hit me; his aim was awful."

Lee guffawed at that. "S'pose I'll have to tell her not to bring him; not that we can say anything bad about him while she's listening, anyway." He picked up a trick wand and twirled it in his fingers while he scrutinised George. "What about you and Angelina?"

Giving him a confused look, George asked, "What are you talking about?"

"I mean—oh, damn—" The wand turned into a rubber chicken and Lee dropped it on the floor. Picking it up and setting it at a jaunty angle on the counter, he said, "I mean, you didn't do your normal reaction to hearing her name."

"What's my normal reaction?" he asked, feeling slightly put out that he was obvious enough about anything to have it classified as such.

"You know." Lee glanced over his shoulder, looking for something, and George Summoned an edible Dark Mark, saying, "There, eat that and stop fidgeting, you're making me nervous."

Unwrapping the sweet, Lee said, "Cheers, mate. I mean you'd get a sort of look on your face."

"That's just his face," Ron added helpfully. George brandished the rubber chicken at his younger brother threateningly, and Ron took a step back, grinning widely.

Lee took a bite of the edible Dark Mark, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed, finally saying, "You always seemed really uncomfortable around her. And hearing about her."

"Oh." Had he really been that obvious? "I hadn't really realised—things are fine between Angelina and I. Neither of us will cause a scene relating to each other, if that's what you're really asking."

Lee looked slightly offended and hurt. "I'm not worried about you making a scene; I'm only making sure it's all right, both of you being there."

George, after two years, was still not accustomed to this sort of solicitousness from Lee – and not entirely fond of it; it was a good thing that Lee'd the good sense to treat him, most of the time, as though everything was the same. What were they supposed to do? He'd been the twins' best friend; their dormitory-mate for seven years; he certainly was never about to start talking about feelings, knowing full well this was not the plane the twins had operated on together, and it wasn't the plane George _wanted_ to operate on alone. "It's fine," he assured Lee. "Seriously. So what, Leaky Cauldron then? What day?"

"Thursday," Lee replied, looking relieved to move away from the topic of George and Angelina.

"Thursday," George repeated. "All right. Yeah, I'll be there."

With a pleased grin, tinged with a bit of surprise – no doubt at George's unequivocal acceptance of the invitation – Lee said, "Good. See you in a few days, then."

Those few days passed uneventfully, the normal routine broken only by Ron staying well past midnight one evening as the two of them were caught up in a burst of inspiration for a new product. Not that this, in itself, wasn't somewhat routine. On those occasions it was almost like having his twin back. Which made it sound as though Ron was some sort of replacement for Fred; that he wasn't a full partner in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes on his own merits, and that wasn't true. It was just the feeling of those late night inventing sessions; the energy of them, that made it seem like maybe, if George closed his eyes, when he opened them, it would be Fred there, instead of Ron.

He didn't like himself any better after thinking it.

On Thursday night he was late to the Leaky Cauldron, having been detained by one of the many potions that was simmering in the laboratory after it exploded. At least it wasn't totally unexpected. He'd been wearing his new goggles when it erupted, saving his eyes, and Essence of Murtlap, plus a bit of Dittany, took care of most of the welts on his hands.

Thus, when he arrived at the Leaky Cauldron, it was to see a table for four in one corner already occupied by Lee, Alicia, and Angelina, with one empty seat. "Wood coming tonight?" George asked by way of hello and sliding into the chair next to Angelina.

Lee raised his glass in greeting while Alicia pushed a pint across the table to him. "No," the latter replied, "extra training."

"Bell won't be here either," Lee informed him.

George lifted his glass and toasted them before taking a swig of the beer. "Who needs 'em?" he asked with a grin. "We'll have ourselves a year reunion."

"I'd've invited Patricia Stimpson and Kenneth Towler if I'd known," Lee lamented.

The other three groaned and Alicia chucked a wadded-up napkin at Lee. "Not Kenneth Towler," she said, making a face.

"Though Patricia's all right," Angelina said fairly.

Lee grinned. "Remember the Yule Ball? She snuck in that flask of Firewhiskey and kept spiking that Beauxbatons bloke's punch."

Alicia put her hand over her mouth, half-scandalised and half-amused by the recollection. "They were snogging just outside the portrait hole, remember?"

"You call that snogging?" Lee asked. "Looked more like he was eating her face to me."

"And he surely didn't recall a thing the following morning," George remarked devilishly.

Angelina smiled a little vaguely. "It seems ages ago, doesn't it?"

"The Yule Ball?" Lee asked.

"The Yule Ball. School. All of it."

"Being children," Alicia added, obviously trying not to look morose about it.

George leaned back in his chair and slung one arm over the back of it, angling towards the rest of them. "So shall we all get destroyed and lament the too-early deaths of our childhoods, then?"

Making a face, Alicia said, "Let's not – last time Lee got drunk he stood up on the table and sang 'The Ballad of Odo' at the top of his lungs."

"And he can't carry a tune to save his life," Angelina added. "Which we unfortunately learnt firsthand."

Lee shrugged. "Obviously I wasn't sloshed enough."

"That's true," George said, "your singing voice improves with further imbibing, but on the other hand, your sense of rhythm really starts to suffer."

"He provides his own with his hiccoughing," Alicia giggled.

Taking a gulp of his beer, Lee said, "Look who's talking, Johnson. _Your_ rhythm sure doesn't suffer after a few."

"What does _that_ mean?" George asked, and then added, mostly joking, "Do I want to know?" Lee and Angelina seemed…unlikely, but not impossible.

"It means I'm a smashing dancer," Angelina replied, glaring at Lee. "Hammered or otherwise."

"But better hammered."

She waved a dismissive hand. "Matter of opinion."

Lee leaned towards her across the table. "If you'd dance with me sometime, I'd probably be a better judge."

"I've got a rule never to dance with friends," she replied breezily, though the smile on her face said that she appreciated this carryover from their school days.

"Think she's got a rule never to dance with _you_, mate," George said in an amused voice.

Lee put a hand over his heart but couldn't quite keep the grin from his face. As the evening went on, George couldn't help but marvel at how easy it was to slip back into the camaraderie that the four of them had always shared, even if their group was missing its fifth member. He supposed that the miracle was not that they could carry on with one of them missing, but that only one of them _was_ missing. In the past, being with his school friends had only made him feel Fred's absence even more acutely, and he hadn't always been exactly…sociable. Something had changed, though, and he didn't know what. But he wasn't complaining. Lee and Alicia occasionally looked relieved to see him laughing. Angelina, when he caught her watching him, just looked thoughtful.

When they all agreed to finish their drinks and head home, George actually felt somewhat regretful about it – a first in a long, long while. "We're meeting on the second at Lee's place," Alicia said as they donned their jackets and stepped outside. Lee and George followed Alicia and Angelina out to Charing Cross Road. "Think you can come, George?" Despite the invitation, there wasn't much hope in her voice that he'd accept, and he did exactly what she was expecting him to, and turned her down. It didn't stop her sighing, though her eyes flicked between him and Angelina oddly. "If you change your mind..." she added, trailing off.

"I'll have to stop by and get a Deflagration Deluxe," Lee remarked.

"I'll set one aside for you," George assured him.

"Thanks mate. Angelina, walk you home?"

Angelina gave him a half-exasperated, half-fond smile. "Alicia's walking me home," she replied, looping her arm through Alicia's a bit ridiculously. "You can come if you want to, though."

Lee waved a hand. "Nah. I reckon the two of you can look out for yourselves."

"But neither of us could do alone," Angelina muttered, rolling her eyes.

"I didn't say that!" Lee objected in an outraged tone.

Alicia pulled on Angelina's arm to stop her retorting. "See you next week, Lee. George…sometime soon?"

"Definitely," he replied.

With a nod, the two women set off down the footpath. Lee clapped George on the shoulder and said grandly, "Till we meet again," before glancing surreptitiously around for any Muggles and, seeing none, Disapparating with a _crack!_ George stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, breathing in the damp air and petrol fumes, before he turned to go back inside the Leaky Cauldron and re-enter Diagon Alley.

"George, wait a minute!" he heard suddenly. Angelina was hurrying back to him, looking sheepish. He did, waiting until she'd reached his side, and for a moment they stood staring at each other while she fiddled with the zip on her handbag. Alicia kept her distance, looking anywhere but at her friends. "I forgot; I wanted to wish you happy birthday," Angelina said, unzipping her bag, "and I've got something for you." When she pulled out a small package wrapped in an old _Daily Prophet_, she added, "It's not much. Just something silly. To prove that I remembered."

George took the package and flashed a smile at her. "Why, Angelina. I never doubted that you did. Especially after Fred and I nicked all your clothes out the window seventh year."

"Quite," she said drily. "One of your finest moments. Alicia insisted it was because the two of you really liked me."

With a smile, he remarked, "I suppose Fred learnt to show it a bit better."

A sad smile flitted across her face but it was gone quickly. "Go on, open it," she urged him, and he shrugged and started to.

"It's stupid," Angelina said, keeping up a patter of conversation while he tore the newspaper off to find a Muggle fake nose and glasses. "But I thought—well, if you ever just want to be someone else, in case you get tired of people looking at you and seeing Fred, or wanting to see Fred." He could see her watching him closely. "They shouldn't, but sometimes people forget. Sometimes even the people who know the difference – who know better – forget." At that, he raised his eyes to meet hers. There was no anxiety in her face, no concern that he'd misunderstand and take this the wrong way, only a sincere, rueful openness that looked to him rather like an apology.

He wanted to tell her there was nothing to apologise for but he knew that wasn't the point. Instead, he pulled the packaging apart and stuck the nose and glasses on his face, then struck a gallant pose for her. "How do I look?"

"Handsome," she said, her smile returning.

"Yeah?" He wiggled the left arm of the glasses, hanging free with no ear to rest on. "Bit wobbly, aren't they?"

Laughing a little, she said, "Try a Sticking Charm; here—" She took a step towards him and put her wand to the side of his head, holding his hair out of the way with her other hand.

He held very still. "You know, it's not every wizard who'd let you point that right at his head—oy, this isn't going to be a Permanent Sticking Charm is it?"

With a snort of laughter, she said, "If it was _actually_ your birthday today…"

"Cruel."

"Well, I learnt from the best, didn't I?" She muttered the incantation and stepped away from him again, admiring her handiwork. "Still a bit lopsided," she said critically. "Hard to get them properly straight from that close. But I still think it'll do."

There was a muffled guffaw from about fifty feet away; both of them turned and saw Alicia facing away from them, her shoulders shaking suspiciously. "How about a second opinion, Alicia?" George called to her.

She turned around, giggling. "Brilliant, George." Then she crossed her arms over her chest and half-turned away again, resolutely giving them their privacy, though he didn't doubt that she could hear every word they were saying. Not that they were having a private conversation, him and Angelina.

Angelina pursed her lips in an amused smile as she glanced at Alicia, and then she turned back to George, her expression growing more serious, which was no easy feat, considering he was currently wearing fake glasses with an enormous plastic nose and bushy mustache attached to them. "The second's a Tuesday," she remarked. The 'of May' bit went unspoken. "Shall we postpone our lunch?"

"I think we'd better do," he said, feeling a twinge of regret about it.

A couple exited the Leaky Cauldron and Angelina stepped closer to George to move out of their way. When she looked at him again, he arranged his features into a dolefully casual look, stroking his fake mustache thoughtfully, and she snorted with laughter. "See you in a couple weeks then, Weasley," she said.

"If you can recognise me, Johnson," he replied.

She grinned swiftly and reached out, touching him fleetingly on the arm. Then she turned and rejoined Alicia, who waved one final time at George, and the two of them disappeared down the road.

George kept the fake nose and glasses on till he got back to his flat, enjoying the amusement that it gave to the people he passed in Diagon Alley. After all, he made people laugh for a living.

* * *

><p>Despite not being anywhere near a bringing-her-round-his-parents' stage with her, George continued seeing Parvati, usually more than once a week. One night towards the end of the month, the two of them had dinner and returned, afterwards, to her place. All through their meal he'd felt flat and distant, and he didn't know if it was because his least favourite day of the year was fast approaching or if something else was bothering him. He hadn't been able to quite put the short conversation he'd had with Ginny about Parvati out of his mind and he'd found himself thinking about it, in quiet moments when his mind wasn't preoccupied with other things, without meaning to.<p>

The truth was, he and Parvati weren't serious, and he couldn't picture them ever being serious. He enjoyed her company loads, not to mention her…er…_company_. But there was something missing, something that George didn't think he'd ever even felt. He felt stupid even thinking about what that might be, so in his mind it was simply _it_ – the 'and' in all of the couples he knew, Bill and Fleur, Percy and Audrey, Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny. Fred and Angelina. That conjunction that was more than just a loose joining of two names. And he didn't want to lead Parvati on – she deserved better.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was waiting for to make his mind up one way or the other; in fact, he wasn't even exactly conscious that he was waiting for something to make his mind up. _That_ realisation hit him as they sat on her couch, his arm around her, and they talked about some serious issue or another; things Bill and Percy would've cared about, but not George, particularly. He only wanted to make people laugh.

"Ron and I've been thinking about a Hogsmeade branch of the shop," George said during a lull in the conversation. They didn't talk much about WWW beyond being polite. He didn't think it was that she wasn't interested, precisely – more that she didn't think about all the minutiae that went into running a shop; how even when he wasn't thinking about it, part of him was always thinking about it; always on the alert for a new idea or a flash of inspiration. As far as she was concerned, he had a job. She didn't understand how much of his life it took up.

He didn't much expect her to offer any kind of advice, but he was surprised by how disappointed he was when all she said was, "That will be a lot of work. Oh, are you going to any of the memorials next week?"

"Er, no," he said, startled by the question for a moment before he remembered that of course Parvati wouldn't know that he hadn't done the previous year; how he couldn't stand the idea of the sombre atmosphere and the soft sobbing – both of which Lee had assured him had been there in abundance. "I won't go again," Lee had said vehemently when he and George had got completely bollocksed on the second of May, 1999. "Bloody depressing; dunno how any of them would want to be remembered that way, 'specially not Fred."

In fact, of his immediate family – counting Hermione and Harry, because they practically were – Hermione was the only one that had gone. George still remembered the way she'd arrived at the shop afterwards, wringing her hair out – apparently it had been raining at Hogwarts – her mouth pressed into a thin line. "How was it?" Ron had asked tentatively, while George had pretended not to listen.

"Bloody depressing," Hermione had declared, and that had been the end of it. George had been amused, later that evening, that Hermione and Lee had had the exact same comment to make about something. He'd thought that was probably a first and a last.

"I think I might go," Parvati said vaguely. She twisted her head to look at him, "I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me, but I'm guessing, based on your tone of voice, that you'd rather not."

"That's actually putting it pretty lightly."

She leaned away from him so she could see him better. "It was nice last year. It's a really nice way to honour—everybody."

"Yeah, I know." He could think of at least two people the annual memorials honoured who'd have found the whole thing stuffy and stifling, and at least one who'd have sneered at everyone's teary speeches. "I think Katie Bell's going," he said, trying to be…what? Supportive, or helpful, or something, and suddenly he felt tired. He didn't want to have any kind of discussion about this – the second of May was an awful day for him; a day that he did not want to have to defend his decisions about.

It seemed stupid for their differing attitudes about the Battle of Hogwarts memorials to be a deal-breaker, but in that moment George knew that it was.

He could not be with a woman who could not understand this basic fact about him – he would not go to a memorial, ever. Full stop. He was happy other people enjoyed them, bloody thrilled for them, but he didn't want to hear the slight tone of admonishment in his girlfriend's voice. Especially because he didn't think she even _knew_ she was doing it. For her, a load of witches and wizards in black robes getting up and making solemn speeches about honouring the dead was…was touching and fitting instead of sickening in a way that he could never describe. Parvati had been at the Battle of Hogwarts just as he had; this wasn't some difference between someone who'd fought and someone who hadn't. It was just a difference in their personalities, and suddenly it was one that he couldn't see past.

"Parvati," George said, hearing _that tone_ in his voice, even though he hadn't meant to.

Obviously, she heard it as well, because she turned towards him, looking serious and focussed. "Yeah?"

He hesitated. If he hadn't gone out with a woman in over two years, well, he hadn't broken up with one, either. "I like you." He was afraid she'd interrupt, misunderstand, but she didn't; she only raised her eyebrows and waited for him to go on. "I really like you, but I'm not sure that in the end it's going to work out between us."

Parvati's eyebrows remained arched. "Let me guess," she said, "it's not me, it's you?"

"Well," George replied, "it's a bit of both, really, isn't it?" She smiled, looking a bit like she was doing it against her will, and George added, "Seriously, you're amazing. It's just, you know…it doesn't…"

"Feel right?" Parvati supplied. At his look of surprise, she smiled wryly. "I know. I got the feeling you might be looking for something a little more."

"Looking for something a little more?" George asked, hoping he didn't sound as befuddled as he felt by that statement.

At that, Parvati looked surprised. "Yeah, more. Wife material. Aren't you?"

"I didn't think I was."

She gave him the enigmatic smile that had first attracted him to her. "I think you are," she informed him, "and you just haven't realised it. And I'm most definitely _not_ looking for a husband at the minute, so…how could we work out, really?"

With a laugh, partly of amusement but more of relief, George remarked, "You're certainly going to be one of the most understanding ex-girlfriends I've ever had." For a moment, her reaction to his ditching her almost made him rethink the ditching at all, but something eased in him when he thought about being single again. "Well," he said, "s'pose I should go, then, eh? Let you reclaim your evening?"

Parvati shrugged good-naturedly. "I suppose. Padma's supposed to be home soon, anyway, so if you want to avoid awkward questions…"

George nodded and got to his feet, grabbing his jacket off the chair, while Parvati followed him and opened the door for him. "It's funny," Parvati said as he stood in the doorway, "but after all these years, it's come true."

"What's come true?" George asked curiously.

She smiled. "'Beware a red-haired man'. Professor Trelawney said it to me in my very first Divination lesson."

"I hope all of this wasn't _that_ bad."

With another of her enigmatic smiles, she replied, "No. Maybe you never noticed—" and here her smile changed from enigmatic to slightly sly, "—but Professor Trelawney's predictions didn't always come true."

George laughed. "I might've done, once or twice." The two of them looked at each other and he felt a knife's blade of regret slash through him. "Parvati, I'm really sorry it didn't work out. I like you."

"I like you too, George," she said, a sadness in her eyes as well. "I'm sure I'll find someone I like again, though – and I'm sure you'll find someone you like better."

The statement put him in an awkward place, caught between acknowledging the truth of it and not wanting to hurt her feelings by doing exactly that. "Right," he finally settled on. "That's how it works, I suppose." He wondered if he should give her a parting hug but felt strange doing it. After all, he'd just told the woman that he couldn't see a future with her. Instead, he stuck a hand out. "Friends?" he asked.

She shook his hand, smiling wryly. "Of course. See you around, George."

The most convenient Apparation point to the building was a disused police box a street over; George made his way to it at a casual pace. A hen party, obviously on its way from one pub to another, passed him, several of the girls exclaiming loudly at his conspicuous lack of ear, and one of the more sober ones shushed them, shooting him a furtive, apologetic look. He returned her look with a small smile to show her he didn't mind – you got used to the stares, missing an ear. Even in the Wizarding world, you got stares, but certainly Muggles stared more. Who knew how they thought it'd happened to him – some war, some attack, they probably assumed. Well, they were right, after a fashion, weren't they? Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to throw himself into the Muggle world more fully. Not the casual forays he made, mostly for business, but really and truly immersing himself in it; a world with no You-Know-Who, no Wizarding Wars, no knowledge of him at all. Would it be a good or a bad thing for him?

He reached the police box and let himself in with a surreptitious tap of his wand, then shut it and stood in the dark for a moment. He supposed Muggles probably had their problems, as well. Ah well, he didn't think he'd survive a day in the Muggle world; anyway he was a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors didn't run. He had a niggling feeling, anyway, that everyone he needed to survive was already in his life, and it stayed with him as he turned on the spot and Disapparated for home.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note: Sorry guys, my updating of this is as terrible as ever. I'm slowly trying to work more on this but unfortunately I'm also trying to finish a number of _Star Trek_ WIPs. I find the two fandoms very difficult to switch between!

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><p>George Weasley did not consider himself to be a superstitious man. Or, as he'd put it to Professor Trelawney in fourth year, "My inner eye's never been the same since the cataracts." He didn't like ascribing significance to coincidences or daily life. But he allowed himself two indulgences on this front every year. One was his birthday, and he rather thought he'd shown a marked improvement this year from the previous one. The other was the second of May. Both had been miserable the previous year. The anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, in particular, had tested all his resolve. It had been like the weeks after Fred's death all over again – suddenly everyone remembered that he'd lost his twin, and strangers in the shop came up to him offering their condolences all day, and out in the street there was a mingled air of celebration and sadness so that he hadn't been able to go anywhere without being reminded of what he'd lost, not to mention that he was supposed to be <em>happy<em>; after all, the Wizarding world was free of You-Know-Who.

This year, at least, he'd managed to keep the shop open all day.

On his way out the door at six-thirty, Ron hesitated, one hand on the door knob, and asked, "You sure you don't want to come?" He, along with Harry, Hermione, and Ginny, were meeting some people in Hogsmeade, as George had been given to understand it, and he'd been solicitously invited several times throughout the day.

George waved his brother off as he counted up the till. "Just go on, would you? Have fun. Though don't have _too_ much fun," he warned, "as we're still opening at nine tomorrow."

Ron still looked unsure but George knew he could count on years of older-brotherly torment to get him out the door. "Yeah, all right," he said. "But if you did want to come—"

"Merlin's baggy y-fronts, Ron, would you just get out? Say hello to everyone for me." George didn't look up as the door opened and then, shortly afterwards, banged shut. Only when the shop had been quiet for a minute or two did he lift his gaze from the pile of Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons on the counter, at which point he pulled his wand out of his pocket, pointed it at the door, and mumbled a series of incantations. A momentary shimmer was the only sign of his security spells. Then, standing up and stretching, he waved his wand again, sending the sorted coins streaming through the air into the strongbox at the back of the shop.

For a moment, he stood in his empty shop, the shop that he'd dreamed and schemed about opening for years with Fred. The day they'd flipped that sign from 'closed' to 'open' had been the best of their lives. Two years ago, just after the Battle, he'd insisted on reopening, even though he wasn't ready to face it alone, even though it was a bloody mess from at least one Death Eater raid, even though barely anyone was venturing into Diagon Alley in that first week or two. Mum had intimated none-too-subtly that he should wait but he'd ignored her. He couldn't _not_ open it. It was his most tangible link with Fred, and being there felt a little like nothing had changed, even though it so terribly had.

That had been two years ago, though. Now the shop was just as much Ron's as it had ever been Fred's, though Ron would never say it and George would never admit it out loud (unless extremely inebriated). Still, that apostrophe on the sign never would've been moved, even if George had decided to run the place by himself.

Heaving a sigh, George stuck his wand back in his pocket and walked up to his flat. He thought about making dinner for himself; stood in the kitchen for several minutes looking at the possibilities, and then realised he wasn't hungry at all and went to sit down on the floor, leaning his back against the couch. Outside, he could hear the occasional Wildfire Whizbang going off, and he just closed his eyes and put a hand over them.

And then, the bell rang.

George wondered who'd be coming to see him tonight after he'd repeatedly told Ron – and Harry, for that matter – to stay away, that he was fine, really, but he wanted to be alone tonight – not to remember Fred; he didn't need to set aside the time to do that, as he did it practically every second of the day anyway – but to give himself the chance to learn how to be an entirely _new_ person again; a person who was starting the third year of having lost his twin brother.

The first year had been a little funny. At first, time had been interminable, the way it was when you were waiting for something and the minutes just dragged by like treacle, and George guessed he'd been waiting for his own death, as daft as that seemed now. There'd been no conscious longing to die, it had been more that life had seemed so _long_, and as he'd never imagined life without a twin brother to go through it with, it had consequently seemed impossible. The drinking had helped with that. Erased whole nights sometimes; once or twice it had been a whole day.

Then the second year had come round, and suddenly it wasn't so fresh in anyone's minds anymore – You-Know-Who had been killed a _year_ ago, everyone had buried their dead and was moving on as best they could. George celebrated his first birthday as a solo twin and it hurt to put that year between himself and Fred, like the full stop on the sentence that had been hanging there but he hadn't been able to finish – _Fred's gone_. He was twenty-one and Fred would be twenty. For ever. Now he was twenty-two and Fred was still twenty. And so it would inevitably go; nothing he could do to stop it. Time marched on and all that.

He had to accustom himself to the fact that Fred was missing everything and that it tore them apart even more surely than his death had. It was stupid. It was nonsensical. It was how he felt, and Ron and Harry either understood or pretended to. He didn't want Hermione or Ginny or the rest of his family knowing about this. He knew Hermione did. Hermione, honestly, might have been the reason Ron was so understanding about it. But he didn't need her to know that he knew. It wasn't the sort of thing you shared with a girl who used to be your prefect, even if she was obviously going to end up as your sister-in-law.

The bell rang again and George shrugged and got to his feet, resigned to the fact that whoever it was wasn't going away on their own. He headed out of the flat and down into the shop in none too big of a hurry. If it was Paracelsus's and their bloody late shipment of potions supplies he'd shut the door in their faces after he got an assurance that he'd get a discount for the massive inconvenience they were causing him.

Agreeably, it was not a slouching delivery man that George could see through the door of the shop, but Angelina Johnson, and he quickened his pace to reach the door and open it. She was looking out at the street when he pulled the door open but spun to face him. "Hi," she said, holding out a bottle of wine. "I fancied your company tonight."

"Mine?" George asked, surprised.

"Yeah, well, I reckon _you_ don't fancy anyone's company, and that's always been a good enough reason for me to come round."

"Funny bit of reasoning, that."

She tilted her chin imperiously at him, though there was a flash of a smile in her eyes. "Are you going to let me in or not?"

Accepting the bottle of wine from her, he said, "Come on up, then."

Sometime between her visit in March and today he'd taken it upon himself to clean the flat, having had the idea in the back of his mind that she might stop in again. She didn't comment on it, but he caught a slight arching of her eyebrows when they stepped inside. "Have you eaten yet?" George asked.

"I'm not hungry," she said with a shrug.

"Me either." George uncorked the bottle of wine with a tap of his wand, Summoned two wine glasses (then surreptitiously made sure they were clean), and poured each of them a glass. He handed one to her and held his own up, knowing he should make some sort of toast because it was the anniversary of everything that mattered, but unable to think of anything that wasn't trite.

Angelina came to his rescue. "To getting on," she said, with a slightly rueful smile, "even if we don't always do a good job of it. And of course," she added quietly, "to everyone we lost two years ago."

George clinked his glass against hers and they both drank in silence, both of them mulling over their own thoughts. Which, he thought, probably weren't so different. "Did you go to any of the memorials?" he asked finally.

She shook her head. "I don't suppose you did, either?"

He grabbed the bottle of wine and motioned for her to follow him, returning to the spot on the floor that he'd been sitting in. Angelina didn't question why they weren't using the perfectly serviceable furniture, and George didn't want to tell her that it was because he'd already broken his wrist once, falling off the couch the previous year after having far too much to drink. Thankfully neither he nor Lee had been drunk enough to think they could repair it themselves.

Tipping back another large mouthful of wine, he replied, "I'm sure it's really nice for some people—" he knew Andromeda Tonks had brought Teddy the previous year and could only assume that she had done again, "—but that wasn't Fred. Standing and making solemn speeches about how they gave their lives for our freedom…" He trailed off, thinking about how hollow it sounded even as he said it, when it shouldn't have. It was true. Fred, Lupin and Tonks, Colin Creevey; all of them. Even old Snape. Not looking at her, he went on slowly and quietly, "I know it was worth it. I _know_ what it'd be like if You-Know-Who was still in power. Probably _all_ of us would be dead by now. But, you know…sometimes I wonder if it _was_ worth it."

He could see her running a slender finger along the base of her wine glass. "I know what you mean." She paused, and he glanced up at her. She looked troubled. "I think we've all probably had that thought every once in awhile. All of us who lost someone. Yeah, it was bad, but if you'd known what you'd have to give up…was it _that_ bad?"

George snorted. "Of course it was."

She nodded ruefully. "I know."

Pausing to drink several mouthfuls of wine, George then commented, "At least Fred's a hero though, yeah? I mean, we could be like Andromeda Tonks, or the bloody Malfoys, and have a sister who was as big of an evil nutter as You-Know-Who himself."

"I tell myself that sometimes."

"It work?"

"Not really. Him being a hero doesn't bring him back."

He swiped a hand over his eyes. "I'm sure he's chuffed wherever he is that he went out in a blaze of glory."

Angelina drained her glass and promptly poured herself another, then topped off George's glass. "I imagine so." She sighed. "Frankly George, I'm sure he's chuffed that it was him and not you."

George was convinced of this very same thing. He'd certainly thought plenty about how much easier it would've been for him to have been the dead twin and not the living one. He'd never pitied Fred, only himself. "I don't doubt it," he replied. "I'd be." He managed to drain his wine glass much more quickly this time – something about consuming more and more of the stuff that always made it go down more easily – and then poured the last of the bottle into his glass. "I think I've another one of those around here somewhere," he said, climbing to his feet. "People will insist on giving me wine despite the fact that my preferred drink is Firewhiskey."

"Well, pardon me," Angelina snorted.

George threw a grin over his shoulder. "Wine is fine socially but I prefer something stronger for drinking on my own."

"I can sympathise with that," she muttered.

He removed the cork and held the bottle up, reading the label. "Hey, this is the good stuff. Elf-made. Wonder who gave this to me?"

"And you're wasting it on me," Angelina remarked as he returned and poured her a glass.

Grinning at her, he replied, "On the contrary, I can't think of someone I'd rather share it with."

"Hm," she said, raising an eyebrow at him as she sipped it. "Oh, George, this _is_ good, you shouldn't give it to me; I've got no taste for wine."

"C'mon, Johnson, I meant that." She looked surprised at his tone, which may have had slightly more vehemence than he'd been aiming for. "I mean," he said, toning it down a bit, "seriously, you know me; would I have got it out if I didn't want to share it with you?"

"No," she acceded, "I don't suppose you would have." They drank in silence for a few moments, and then Angelina said, "Oh," as though remembering something uninteresting. "By the way, Alicia and Oliver are together now."

George practically choked on his wine. "What?" he finally managed to spit out.

A smile twitched on her face. "You can't possibly be surprised."

"Of course I can be," he said. "What about Sloper? She was still going out with Sloper last week, wasn't she?"

Rolling her eyes, Angelina said, "Finally realised what a swot he was, didn't she?" Then, she smiled affectionately. "And no, she wasn't. I dunno exactly what happened – you know Alicia, she won't say."

George snorted and downed another gulp of wine. "You're talking about our Oliver, right? Oliver Wood?"

"He certainly isn't _my_ Oliver. You and Alicia can have him."

Guffawing, George said, "I'll leave him to Alicia. Think that'll last?"

Angelina shrugged. "Maybe. Probably. I don't know. She's been in love with him for ages and it was obvious to everyone but her. But I'm probably not the best judge of these things."

"Why not?" he asked without thinking about it. Immediately, he wished he hadn't, only because of the immensely awkward expression on her face. He was tempted to suggest that she drink more wine. "Never mind," he said. Then, casting around for something else, raised his glass and said, "Well, to Alicia and Oliver."

"I can certainly drink to that," Angelina said, and did so. "And speaking of," she said, once she'd swallowed the mouthful of wine, "I heard you were seeing Parvati Patil."

George shrugged. "Sort of."

She was looking at him closely. "Sort of? How cryptic."

Finishing off the last of the wine in his glass, he replied, "I was, briefly." Then he shrugged. "I didn't really want to be a gloomy berk round her ever, and unfortunately, as I often am, it would've got difficult to continue with the relationship."

In response, Angelina only nodded. He appreciated that. Then, she informed him casually, "I ditched Aidan Lynch."

"Yeah?" he asked.

With a nod, she said, "Yeah." He wondered if she'd elaborate but wasn't surprised when she didn't, instead taking another sip of wine.

George poured himself another glass and swallowed a swig of it, noticing that his ability to distinguish any subtle notes of flavour was diminishing rapidly in favour of the buzzing in his head. "You know what actually made me realise once and for all it wasn't going to work with me and Parvati?" he asked into the silence in the room. Angelina didn't answer, but he went on anyway, "She asked me if I was going to a memorial today. Honest question, right? Only it seemed like she should've known that I never would."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "You're expecting a mind reader?"

"No." He fingered the stem of the glass and then figured he might just as well take another sip. "Loads of people know I don't want to go. I dunno. Like I said, it's stupid, but that's what it is."

"You didn't say it was stupid," she pointed out.

"Didn't I?" That'd be the wine. _Have some more, George._ "I meant to."

She drained her glass, watching him as she did so. When she'd finished, she said, "I don't think it's stupid. I sacked off Aidan because he didn't lose anyone close to him in the War." She paused. "And he was too short."

George couldn't help laughing. "D'you ever get the feeling we just _like_ being miserable?"

"I'm sure we look that way to certain people," she said, smiling sardonically.

"Aidan Lynch."

"Parvati Patil," she shot back.

There was a bang and a colourful shower of fireworks fell by the window; then another and a dragon sailed past. Suddenly Diagon Alley was alight with a rainbow of explosions and echoing with whistles and screeches; even the dragon was roaring (Ron's idea and an update to the original Whizbang). "Sold through more than three-quarters of the stock in the past week," he remarked.

She tore her eyes away from the display outside. "You've never set off any of your own fireworks on the second of May." In answer – not that she needed one, as it had been all statement and no question – he just looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

"Don't you wish you could be happy when this day comes round?" she asked after a long pause.

He laughed harshly. Then, flicking a glance at her, he put a hand to his neck and sighed. "Yeah." Then, he shook himself. "Merlin's balls, it's not— I mean, I _am_ happy. I can be happy." He glanced at his empty wine glass and then at the second bottle that he'd only just noticed that they'd emptied, and finally towards the kitchen where he had another stashed away somewhere. Then, he decided against it and pushed his glass away, willing his hand to be steady. "It's all such bollocks, isn't it, Ange?"

"Which part?" she asked drily. She'd drunk less than him. Maybe he'd been wrong about how deep her hurt went. Or maybe she was just finding it in herself to pull herself out of it. He always thought he was but then something happened – like the bloody second of May, it always came around, year after year – to push him back to the mess he'd been those first few months.

He rubbed at his face with a hand. So time to stop bloody letting it happen. "I can be happy," he repeated. "You-Know-Who's gone. There hasn't been a loose Death Eater on the rampage for over a year. I've got almost my whole family."

"Almost," Angelina repeated softly.

George met her eyes. "S'pose that's got to be good enough, hasn't it?" Then, letting the wine go to his head, he added, "And I've got you." When she looked surprised, he hastily went on, "You and Lee, and Alicia and Katie and Wood. Unscathed and whole."

There was an odd look on her face and she looked towards the floor, tracing the grain of the wood for a moment. Then she returned her gaze towards his. "Not quite unscathed. But enough."

He watched her fingers, long and slender and with that Chaser's strength running through them. She had very nice hands, Angelina did. "S'pose the next generation'll get to be the ones that're actually unscathed," he said slowly, though it made him think of Teddy Lupin with a wince. "Not us." He thought about that other bottle of wine again, then rejected it once and for all. "Oh well. Guess that was the point of fighting, eh?"

There was a funny look in her eyes. Not teary. Angelina didn't get teary; she either cried or she didn't and the only time he'd ever seen her cry was at Fred's funeral. But if there was a precursor to being teary, a certain shine, maybe, to the eyes, or a slight crinkling of the brow – that was the way she looked, and he saw her swallow hard and then take a deep gulp of air.

Before either of them spoke again, there was suddenly a soft but insistent clicking from behind him. He saw Angelina's eyes lift towards the window and he turned around to look. An owl was tapping on the glass and George got up quickly to open the window, swaying unsteadily. "That's Bill and Fleur's owl," he announced, feeling a twinge of uneasiness. It was so late; why should they be owling him at this time? Then, he shook himself. The alcohol was making him stupid. This wasn't two years ago, when a late-night owl meant a family member was in trouble or hurt or God forbid dead; though the Weasleys had been lucky and missed that last one out – they hadn't found out about their loss via a clipped note.

The owl hopped inside and offered its leg; George unrolled the parchment tied there, feeling his fingers shaking slightly despite the logic telling him everything was fine.

Then, he went very still as he held the letter – well, more of a hastily scrawled note, but that was Bill's handwriting – and he heard Angelina ask, "What's wrong?"

He had to shake himself before his throat would connect back to his mouth and allow his voice to come out. "Nothing's wrong. It's—I've got a niece," he said wonderingly.

"What?"

He held the note out mutely to her and she got to her feet and took it. "I'm an uncle. Fleur had her baby." He paused and watched Angelina's eyes scan the letter. "They've called her Victoire."

Angelina looked at him, an unexpected smile lighting her face. "Victoire," she repeated softly. "That's lovely."

George's face cracked into a wide grin and he quickly grabbed a quill and scribbled a reply on the back of the note:

_Bill, you bastard, well done. Give Fleur and the beautiful baby Victoire a kiss for me. Tell me when I'm welcome to meet the little tyke and I'll pop round._

Then he tied it to the owl's leg and opened the window back up for it. As it took wing back into the darkness, Angelina came up behind him. "You're going to be brilliant, aren't you?"

He turned around to look at her. "At what?"

Her lips were curved in a slight, amused smile. "With a baby. With kids."

"I reckon as long as they're not my own I'll be fantastic, yeah."

She nudged him with an elbow. "Don't be a berk. You'll be a good father."

The idea of a family – a wife, children – was something that had only vaguely occurred to him once or twice before. Just out of school it had been the last thing on his mind. Fred had been the one with the girl, with the grand plans for five or six kids, maybe a set of twins or two, but George was content with the casual, breezy romances that he'd carried on. What Parvati had said – that he was looking for a wife – had well and truly taken him aback. He'd not been aware of looking for any such thing. But once she'd said it, it'd _made_ him think about it, made him wonder how possible it even was for him. "Need to find someone to put up with me first," he finally said. "No easy feat."

With a shrug, she said, "The right woman won't consider it 'putting up with' you. She'll find your—er, many sterling qualities charming."

Looking over at her with one quirked eyebrow, he asked, "Do you know this woman, and can you introduce me?" When she laughed, he went on, "Honestly, who in their right mind would want to deal with me on a daily basis, for the rest of her life? _I_ wouldn't want to deal with me. I reckon everyone who _does_ deal with me is getting compensated somehow."

"Tickets to Holyhead Harpies matches," Angelina supplied with a crooked smile.

"Exactly," he said, "though they must have got something else for you."

"Where do you think these new trainers came from?"

He snorted. "At least you're getting something out of this." For a second, he savoured that he could make her laugh so easily, and then he added, "I don't say this looking for pity, but, you know, I used to be pretty uncomplicated, and I reckon a lot of different women could've made me happy. Not necessarily all at once, though I'd've been willing to give that a try as well." Angelina rolled her eyes. " Now, I just…" He shrugged. "I just can't imagine her. And while I'm certain that I _can_ father children, I always rather imagined doing it within the confines of marriage."

For a moment, she stared at him without speaking. Then, taking him completely off-guard, she wrapped her arms around him and said from somewhere near his good ear, "George, you're twenty-two years old."

"Is that all?" he asked, trying to decide whether or not he was supposed to return her embrace. In the end, she pulled back before he came to a decision.

As she pushed a curly strand of hair out of her face, she repeated, "You're going to be a really brilliant father. Whenever you become one. And you've got so much time."

He crossed his arms over his chest, partly to hide the fact that her certainty about his nonexistent but future family actually made him feel stupidly hopeful. "You're right about the time bit," he said. "Maybe I'll be one of those old farts with a young trophy wife…I could even switch her out once she starts wearing out—_ouch_!" He rubbed his arm where she'd punched him, having foolishly forgotten that Chaser arm of hers. "Bloody hell, woman, how d'you expect me to ever father children if you've beaten me beyond all recognition?"

She pursed her lips at him in what looked very much like an attempt not to laugh. "I'm only pointing out to you that you've still got time; it's not a concern of mine personally," she said airily.

"Obviously not," he muttered. Then, he glanced round the flat, his eyes settling on the two empty wine bottles and glasses. "Guess we should have saved some wine. Here—wait a minute—" He strode into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cupboard, then grunted as his fingers closed around another bottle, this one half empty. He groped for his wand in his pocket for a minute, realised it was laying on the floor, and pulled his head out of the cupboard to grab a couple of tumblers _sans_ magic, then poured Firewhiskey into both glasses. He hesitated over his own for a moment, letting the alcohol slosh back to the bottom of the bottle and pouring rather less than he normally would have done. Angelina joined him in the kitchen and took her glass, raising it and clinking it against George's as he said, "Victoire Weasley."

"Let's hope she'll have a better world that we did," Angelina added, and both of them drank to a little girl who was more than just the next in a long line of Weasleys.

The arrival of Bill's letter had broken the sadness of the night; the subsuming nature of it, at least. Nothing could ever take it completely away. Angelina stayed and their conversation grew lighter; and when her stomach growled loudly he pulled out a sack of Honeyduke's sweets. It was almost like being kids again; a thin veneer of joy on an utterly joyless day, until George realised that it was no veneer. Whatever he was feeling wasn't fake or shallow, just fragile.

Eventually, Angelina yawned and stretched her arms up in the air, saying, "S'pose I should let you get some sleep." She waved her wand and the myriad wrappers from the now-severely depleted Honeyduke's sack streamed through the air to the bin in the kitchen.

When he walked her to the door, he stepped outside into Diagon Alley with her. It had quieted down, though people were still out – mostly staggering at this point – and there was a sort of holiday feel even though it was past one in the morning, and technically it was the third of May, now. For a long moment, the two of them stood there, side-by-side between street lamps. Somewhere out of sight, a Wildfire Whizbang screeched. "Thanks for coming round, Ange," he said.

She didn't say anything, but her brow twitched and something like tenderness showed on her face. Dim lamplight illuminated her profile and she looked into his face with a gaze full of understanding and sadness and yes, it was tenderness, that was the only word – but not pity. How could she pity him, when two years ago she'd lost the same person that he still mourned every minute of every day?

She hesitated for another moment and then stepped forward and put her arms around his neck. This time, he didn't ponder what he was supposed to do; he wrapped his own arms around her tightly, not bothering to think about, for once, what she'd been to Fred. She sighed and leant into him, then tightened her grip on him fiercely, till they were clinging to each other on that dark street, not knowing if they were celebrating or mourning the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts.

They stood there for a long time, neither of them making a sound, holding onto the other as though they were each other's life rafts. Angelina's fingers clenched his shirt tightly on one shoulder, the tips of her fingers digging into the space between his collarbone and shoulder blade. George didn't know if they were holding each other trying to draw some sort of strength or—or if something had changed tonight and they were holding on _because_ things were changing, because everything was going to be different now. Only George didn't know what it was that had changed; he only knew that something felt altered and that there was a kind of lightness in him that he hadn't felt for—a long time. He didn't know what was responsible; if it was the birth of Victoire, or something else – or the fact that Angelina had sat in his flat with him and it'd made him happy despite the fact that he was so desperately sad.

Finally, they pulled apart from each other, on some unspoken cue. "Well then," Angelina said, smiling. It looked like there were tears in her eyes. "You're an uncle now, George. Looks as though you've got a reason to be happy today from now on."


End file.
